ISO 14001 is an international standard for designing and implementing an environmental management system (EMS). ISO 14001 requirements provide a framework and guidelines for creating your environmental management system so that you do not miss important elements needed for an EMS to be successful.
ISO 14001 has become the international standard for designing and implementing an environmental management system. The standard is published by ISO (the International Organization for Standardization), an international body that creates and distributes standards that are accepted worldwide. The most recent version of the environmental management system requirements was published in 2015, and is referred to as “ISO 14001:2015.” The standard was agreed upon by a majority of member countries before being released and updated, and as such it has become an internationally recognized standard accepted by a majority of countries around the world.
In a survey of ISO 14001 certification at the end of 2017 the number of companies that have implemented an ISO 14001 environmental management system shows a stable trend worldwide. Below are the results over the previous 6-year period.
Data taken from 2017 ISO Survey
An environmental management system, often called an EMS, is comprised of the policies, processes, plans, practices and records that define the rules governing how your company interacts with the environment. This system needs to be tailored to your particular company, because only your company will have the exact legal requirements and environmental interactions that match your specific business processes. However, the ISO 14001 requirements provide a framework and guidelines for creating your environmental management system so that you do not miss important elements needed for an EMS to be successful.
Taking care of our environment, and preventing our companies from causing negative impacts on the environment, are two of the most important challenges facing businesses today. One of the biggest benefits of implementing an EMS is the recognition that comes with being among those businesses that care enough to reduce their environmental footprint. This can bring better relationships with customers, the public, and the community at large for your company, but it also brings other benefits.
Along with the good public image, many companies can save money through the implementation of an environmental management system. This can be achieved through reducing incidents that can result in liability costs, being able to obtain insurance at a more reasonable cost, and conserving input materials and energy through reduction efforts. This improvement in cost control is a benefit that cannot be overlooked when making the decision to implement an environmental management system.
The ISO 14001 structure is split into ten sections. The first three are introductory, with the last seven containing the requirements for the environmental management system. Here is what the seven main sections are about:
Section 4: Context of the organization – This section talks about requirements for understanding your organization in order to implement an EMS. It includes the requirements for identifying internal and external issues, identifying interested parties and their expectations, defining the scope of the EMS and identifying the processes required for the EMS.
Section 5: Leadership – The leadership requirements cover the need for top management to be instrumental in the implementation of the EMS. Top management needs to demonstrate commitment to the EMS by ensuring environmental commitment, defining and communicating the environmental policy and assigning roles and responsibilities throughout the organization.
Section 6: Planning – Top management must also plan for the ongoing function of the EMS. Risks and opportunities of the EMS in the organization need to be assessed, and environmental objectives for improvement need to be identified and plans made to accomplish these objectives. Additionally, it is necessary for the organization to assess all the ways in which the organizational processes interact and affect the environment as well as the legal and other commitments that are required fo the organization.
Section 7: Support – The support section deals with management of all resources for the EMS, and also includes requirements around competence, awareness, communication and controlling documented information (the documents and records required for your processes).
Section 8: Operation – The operation requirements deal with all aspects of the environmental controls needed by the organizational processes, as well as the need to identify potential emergency situations and plan responses so that you are prepared to respond should an emergency occur.
Section 9: Performance evaluation – This section includes the requirements needed to make sure that you can monitor whether your EMS is functioning well. It includes monitoring and measuring your processes, assessing environmental compliance, internal audits, and ongoing management review of the EMS.
Section 10: Improvement – This last section includes the requirements needed to make your EMS better over time. This includes the need to assess process nonconformity and taking corrective actions for processes.
These sections are based on a Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, which uses these elements to implement change within the processes of the organization in order to drive and maintain improvements within the processes.
For more on how this works within the ISO 14001 standard, this blog article gives a more detailed explanation: Plan-Do-Check-Act in the ISO 14001 Standard.
The benefits of ISO 14001 cannot be overstated; companies large and small have used this standard to great effect, as mentioned above. Here are just a few of these benefits:
Improve your image and credibility – By assuring customers that you have a commitment to demonstrable management of your environmental impacts, you can enhance your image and market share through maintaining a good public image and improved community relations.
Improve cost control – One improvement that all companies are looking for is reduction of costs. The EMS can help with this by conserving energy and input materials, while reducing incidents for which a company can incur liability costs and improved environmental controls can help to obtain insurance at reduced costs to the company.
Use evidence-based decision making – By ensuring that you are using accurate data to make your decisions on what to improve, you can greatly increase the chances that your improvements will be successful the first time rather than having several unsuccessful attempts. By using this data to track your progress you can correct these improvement initiatives before they have gone “off the rails,” which can save costs and time.
Create a culture of continual improvement – With continual improvement, you can work toward better processes and reduced environmental impacts in a systematic way in order to improve your public image and potentially reduce your costs, as identified above. When a culture of improvement is created, people are always looking for ways to make their processes better, which makes maintaining the EMS easier.
Engage your people – Given a choice between working for a company that shows care and concern for the environment around it and one that does not, most people would prefer the first company. By engaging your employees in a group effort to reduce your environmental footprint you can increase employee focus and retention.
What is ISO 14001 certification? There are two types of certification: certification of a company’s environmental management system against the ISO 14001 requirements, and certification of individuals to be able to audit against the ISO 14001 requirements. This section discussed the steps for a company to implement an ISO 14001 environmental management system and have it certified.
ISO 14001 certification for your company involves implementing an EMS based on the ISO 14001 requirements, and then hiring a recognized certification body to audit and approve your EMS as meeting the requirements of the ISO 14001 standard.
Starting with management support and identifying the legal requirements for the EMS, you will need to start with defining your environmental policy, environmental aspects, and environmental objectives and targets, which together define the overall scope and implementation of the environmental management system. Along with these, you will need to create the mandatory and additional processes and procedures necessary for your organization’s operations. There are several mandatory processes that need to be included, and others to be added as the company finds them necessary. For a good explanation on this, take a look at this white paper on List of mandatory documents required by ISO 14001:2015.
This creation of documents and records can be done internally by your company, or you can get help through hiring a consultant or purchasing standard documentation. To see samples of documentation, visit this free ISO 14001 downloads page.
Once all of the processes and procedures are in place, you will need to operate the EMS for a period of time. By doing this, you will be able to collect the records necessary to go to the next steps: auditing and reviewing your system and becoming certified.
After finishing all your documentation and implementing it, your organization also needs to perform these steps to ensure a successful certification:
Internal audit – The internal audit is in place for you to check your EMS processes. The goal is to ensure that records are in place to confirm compliance of the processes and to find problems and weaknesses that would otherwise stay hidden.
Management review – A formal review by your management to evaluate the relevant facts about the management system processes in order to make appropriate decisions and assign resources.
Corrective actions – Following the internal audit and management review, you need to correct the root cause of any identified problems and document how they were resolved.
The company certification process is divided into two stages:
Stage One (documentation review) – The auditors from your chosen certification body will check to ensure your documentation meets the requirements of ISO 14001.
Stage Two (main audit) – Here, the certification body auditors will check whether your actual activities are compliant with both ISO 14001 and your own documentation by reviewing documents, records, and company practices.
Training in the concepts of ISO 14001 is available, and there are a range of course options for individuals to choose from. Only the first of the courses mentioned below can lead to certification for the individual to be able to audit for a certification body, but the others are very useful for those who will be using these skills within their own company:
ISO 14001 Lead Auditor Course – This is a four- to five-day training course focused on understanding the ISO 14001 EMS standard and being able to use it for auditing management systems against these requirements. The course includes an exam at the end to verify knowledge and competence, and it is only with an accredited course that an individual can become approved to audit for a certification body.
ISO 14001 Internal Auditor Course – This is commonly a two- or three-day course that is based on the lead auditor course above, but does not include the test for competence, so this is most useful for someone beginning to do internal audits within a company.
ISO 14001 Awareness and Implementation Course – Several courses are offered that provide knowledge of ISO 14001 and how to implement it. These can be one- or two- or even five-day courses, and can even include online e-learning sessions as a method of teaching the material. These courses are good for those who need an overview on the ISO 14001 standard, or those who will be involved in the implementation within a company, and many are more economical than investing in the lead auditor course for those involved at this level.
There are a number of accredited training organizations around the world where you can gain individual qualifications in ISO 14001.
To implement ISO 14001 easily and efficiently, use our ISO 14001 Premium Documentation Toolkit that provides step-by-step guidance and all documents for full ISO 14001 compliance.
Mark Hammar