Dr. Thayer completed his Ph.D. in the spring and has re-joined the ESGP as an adjunct instructor. His dissertation research focused on Environmental Management Systems (EMSs), such as ISO 14001 and EMAS, which are used by many organizations across the globe, with the overarching goal of continual improvement of environmental performance. Proponents claim that properly implemented, supported, and maintained EMSs will result in many organizational benefits; detractors claim EMSs are more akin to “greenwashing” and do not provide much in the way of organizational benefit.

The most important and the most difficult piece of the EMS process is the identification of significant environmental aspects. The Aspect-Impact-Mitigation (AIM) Prioritization Program was originally developed to provide a holistic risk-based approach to identify significant environmental aspects in accordance with the guidance in the ISO 14001 standard. While the current version of AIM orders environmental aspects by relative risk (i.e., significance), it is not without its own shortcomings. Dr. Thayer's research resulted in an improved AIM approach for identifying significant environmental aspects through assessment of environmental impact risks and prioritized mitigation potentials.