ISO 14001

ISO 14000 is a family of standards related to environmental management that exists to help organizations minimize how their operations (processes etc.) negatively affect the environment (i.e. cause adverse changes to air, water, or land); comply with applicable laws, regulations, and other environmentally oriented requirements, and continually improve in the above.

ISO 14000 is similar to ISO 9000 quality management in that both pertain to the process of how a product is produced, rather than to the product itself.

 Expected Outcomes for Accredited Certification to ISO 14001
(from the perspective of interested parties)

ISO 14001 certification is frequently used in both private and public sectors to increase the confidence level of interested parties in an organization’s environmental management system.

ISO is the developer and publisher of ISO 14001, but does not itself carry out auditing and certification For the defined certification scope, an organization with a certified environmental management system is managing its interactions with the environment and is demonstrating its commitment to:

  1. Preventing pollution.
  2. Meeting applicable legal and other requirements.
  3. Continually enhancing its environmental management system in order to achieve improvements in its overall environmental performance.

What accredited certification to ISO 14001 means

The accredited certification process is expected to ensure that the organization has an environmental management system, suitable for the nature of its activities, products and services, that conforms to the requirements of ISO 14001, and in particular can demonstrate for the defined scope that the organization:

  1. has defined an environmental policy appropriate to the nature, scale and
    environmental impacts of its activities, products and services
  2. has identified the environmental aspects of its activities, products and services
    that it can control and /or influence and determined those that can have a
    significant environmental impact (including those related to suppliers /
         contractors).
  3. has procedures in place to identify applicable environmental legislation and other
    relevant requirements ,to determine how these apply to its environmental aspects 
    and to keep this information up to date.
  4. has implemented effective controls in order to meet its commitment to comply
    with applicable legal and other requirements.
  5. has defined environmental objectives and targets that are measurable, where
    practicable, taking into account legal requirements and significant environmental
    aspects, and has programmes in place to achieve these objectives and targets
  6. ensures that people working for or on behalf of the organization are aware of the
    requirements of its environmental management system and are competent to
    perform tasks that have the otential to cause significant environmental impacts
  7. has implemented procedures for communicating internally, as well as responding
    to and communicating (as necessary) with interested external parties
  8. ensures that those operations associated with significant environmental aspects
    are carried out under specified conditions and monitors and controls the key
    characteristics of its operations that can have a significant environmental impact
  9.  has established and (where practicable) tested procedures to address and
    respond to emergencies that can have an effect on the environment
  10. periodically evaluates its compliance with applicable legal and other requirements
  11. aims to prevent nonconformities, and has procedures in place to
  12. correct any nonconformities that do occur
  13. analyze the cause of any such nonconformities and take corrective action   
    to avoid their recurrence
  14. has implemented effective internal audit and management review procedures

What accredited certification to ISO 14001 does not mean

 

1) ISO 14001 defines the requirements for an organization’s environmental management system, but does not define specific environmental performance criteria.

2) Accredited certification to ISO 14001 provides confidence in the organization’s ability to meet its own environmental policy, including the commitment to comply with applicable legislation, to prevent pollution, and to continually improve its performance. It does not ensure that the organization is currently achieving optimal environmental performance.

3) The ISO 14001 accredited certification process does not include a full regulatory compliance audit and cannot ensure that violations of legal requirements will never occur, though full legal compliance should always be the organization’s goal.

4) Accredited certification to ISO 14001 does not necessarily indicate that the organization will be able to prevent environmental accidents from occurring

To fill in the application for ISO 14001 please press here