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ISO 14001:2015
Environmental Management System
WHITE PAPER

ISO 14001
Environment

Background and
overview to the
ISO 14001:2015
revision

An Environmental Management System (EMS) consists in a framework that helps a company achieve its environmental goals through consistent control of its operations. The assumption is that this increased control will improve the environmental performance of the company.

The overall purpose of ISO 14001 is to balance the environmental protection and prevention of pollution with social and economic needs. Organizations can improve their overall environmental performance through the implementation of this standard, which requires from organizations to establish an environmental policy, objectives, and processes to achieve the stated objectives and policy.

The requirements set in ISO 14001 are generic, flexible and useful to all types of organizations. Thus, this ISO Standard, being a Management System, can be aligned with other Management Systems such as Quality Management, Business Continuity Management and other management systems due to their similar structures.

ISO 14001 specifies the requirements to plan, establish, implement, operate, monitor, review, maintain and continually improve an environmental management system. Additionally, it helps organizations prepare, respond and deal with the consequences of environmental degradation and legal liabilities arising as a result of it.

All future management system standards will follow the new common structure for management system standards. More and more organizations are required to manage several compliance frameworks simultaneously. To simplify the work, to avoid conflicts and to reduce duplication of documents, ISO is harmonizing the management systems to the high-level structure.

ISO 9001:2015 is the first quality management standard to be fully compliant with the new guidelines from Annex SL (“High level structure and identical text for management system standards and common core management system terms and definitions”). It has been developed in response to standards users’ critics that, while current standards have many common components, they are not sufficiently aligned, making it difficult for organizations to rationalize their systems and to interface and integrate them. This means that ISO 9001 is integrated to the high-level structure and common text that will make it totally aligned with all other management systems once the related standards have also adopted the Annex SL guidelines.

Usually standards are reviewed every five years to make sure they stay relevant and in 2011, the ISO Technical Committee agreed that ISO 14001 should be revised. One reason is the fact that technology and business practices have changed significantly since its last major revision, and with companies using multiple standards at a time, there is a clear need for a common format to make implementation easier. The revised standard will also be valid for 10 to 15 years, so a large number of people felt that ISO 14001 needed to be improved

ISO 14001:2015
clauses

Key clauses of ISO 14001:2015

Following the new structure of the Annex SL, ISO 14001 is organized into the following main clauses:

 

Clause 4: Context of the organization Clause 5: Leadership Clause 6: Planning Clause 7: Support
Clause 8: Operation Clause 9: Performance evaluation Clause 10: Improvement

Key
Areas

New ISO 14001:2015 Standard

What does the new ISO 14001 look like?

Clause 4

Context of the organization. This is an entirely new clause that brings a better and more strategic understanding of all the factors affecting the way organizations manage their environmental responsibilities. Some examples are the climate, resource availability and social, regulatory, financial and technology changes.

 

Clause 5

Top management shall demonstrate leadership and commitment with respect to the effectiveness of the EMS, and with respect to the integration of environmental protection parameters into business processes. Top management engagement is crucial in supporting the organization through provision of resources, and through promotion of continual improvement. The purpose of these requirements is to establish leadership and commitment by ensuring that the EMS achieves its intended outcomes. Another important responsibility that top management has is to establish, implement and maintain the environmental policy, and to make sure that it is communicated within the organization and shared with relevant interested parties.

 

Clause 6

This is a critical stage as it relates to establishing strategic objectives and guiding principles for the Environmental Management System as a whole. The objectives of an EMS are the expression of the intent of the organization to treat the risks identified and/or to comply with requirements of organizational needs. The environmental objectives shall:
  • Be consistent with the environmental policy
  • Be measurable
  • Take communicated
  • Be updated as appropriate
An organization wishing to comply with ISO 14001 shall at least:
  • Select and define a risk assessment methodology
  • Demonstrate that the selected methodology will provide comparable and reproducible results
  • Define criteria for accepting risks and identify acceptable levels of risk

Clause 7

The day-to-day management of an effective environmental management system relies heavily on using the appropriate resources for each task. These include having competent staff with relevant (and demonstrable) training, as well as supporting services, awareness and communication. This must be supported by properly managed documented information. Both the internal and external communication of the organization must be considered in this area, including the format, content, and proper timing of such communication. Requirements on the creation, update and control of documented information are also specified in this clause.

 

Clause 8

Operations, now places greater emphasis on the concept of the ‘value chain’ that impacts the environmental management system. It also looks at how organizations control changes and outsource specific processes.

 

Clause 9

Performance evaluation, is a new clause that has pulled together a number of existing clauses from the current version including monitoring and measurement and management review. This will help companies to gather the right records and prove that their environmental management system meets their business objectives.

 

Clause 10

Improvement. Although it retains the principle of the current non-conformity and corrective action clause, the new standard is more detailed in its consideration of nonconformity and resulting action needed

PDCA
Cycle

ISO 14001: 2015
Environment

PLAN

Do an environmental review and identify what will affect your organization. Define your objectives, targets and action plans to improve your environmental performance – all in line with your company’s policy

DO

Implement your environmental management action plans.

ACT

Take actions to improve your environmental performance on an ongoing basis.

CHECK

Monitor and measure your processes and operations against the company’s objectives and report the results

ISO 14001
Links

Integration with
other management systems

Link between ISO 14001:2015 and other standards

The ISO 14000 family of standards includes most notably the ISO 14001, and various standards such as ISO 14004, ISO 14006, ISO 14031, ISO 14044, and ISO 14063, which are used to complement ISO 14001:2015. This family of standards aims at promoting effective and efficient environmental management for organizations through the use of different tools and techniques. ISO 14004 provides guidance to organizations to support the achievement of sustained success by an environmental management approach. ISO 14006 standard provides guidelines for incorporating eco-design, whereas the ISO 14044 sets the requirements and guidelines for life cycle assessment. There is also a very strong link between ISO 14001 and ISO 14031, as this standard provides additional guidance on an effective environmental performance evaluation.

These standards are usually combined to achieve better results in improving the organizational environmental performance. There are also other standard that complement the family of ISO 14000 by offering guidance for audits, communication, labelling and life cycle analysis, and also tackling the environmental challenges. Integration with other management systems General requirements are commonly stated in any management system and relate to determining objectives, applying them according to the organization’s habits and needs, keeping them alive based on a strong management commitment, monitoring and reviewing, supporting the man - agement system by good documentation, regular ‘health-checks’ via internal or external audits and to gain benefits through continual improvement as achieved by a regular management review.

Benefits

ISO 14001
What are the benefits?

Environmental Management – The Business Benefits

The adoption of an effective environmental management process within an organization will have benefits in a number of areas, examples of which include:

 

ISO 14001 is designed to benefit any organization – whatever their size or number of sites. This includes public, private and not-for-profit organizations wanting to cut waste and energy costs or companies in supply chains challenged to become more environmentally friendly. Once ISO 14001 has successfully been implemented, companies can look forward to an improved overall company performance, a better reputation, enhanced sales and market access, effective operational controls to manage impact, reduced risk of litigation and fines, product differentiation and a positive influence on the bottom line.

  • Improved organizational effectiveness and efficiency
  • Improved understanding of the business as gained through risk identification and analysis
  • Operational resilience which results from implementing risk reduction
  • Downtime reduction due to the identification of alternative processes and workarounds
  • Protection of stakeholder value
  • Increase customer and employee satisfaction
  • Increased market share and profit
  • Improved organizational culture
  • Enhanced continuous improvement
  • Process improvement; and
  • Avoidance of liability actions.

ISO 14001
Certification

Certification
Steps

Certification of Organizations

The usual path for an organization that wishes to be certified against ISO 14001 is the following:

1. Implementation of the management system:

Before being audited, a management system must be in operation for some time. Usually, the minimum time required by the certification bodies is 3 months.

2. Internal audit and review by top management:

Before a management system can be certified, it must have had at least one internal audit report and one management review.

3. Selection of the certification body (registrar):

Each organization can select the certification body (registrar) of its choice

4. Pre-assessment audit (optional):

An organization can choose to perform a pre-audit to identify any possible gap between its current management system and the requirements of the standard

5. Stage 1 audit:

A conformity review of the design of the management system. The main objective is to verify that the management system is designed to meet the requirements of the standard(s) and the objectives of the organization. It is recommended that at least some portion of the Stage 1 audit should be performed on-site at the organization’s premises.

6. Stage 2 audit (On-site visit):

The Stage 2 audit objective is to evaluate whether the declared manage - ment system conforms to all requirements of the standard, is actually being implemented in the organi - zation and can support the organization in achieving its objectives. Stage 2 takes place at the site(s) of the organization’s sites(s) where the management system is implemented.

7. Follow-up audit (optional):

If the auditee has non-conformities that require additional audit before be - ing certified, the auditor will perform a follow-up visit to validate only the action plans linked to the non- conformities (usually one day).

8. Confirmation of registration:

If the organization is compliant with the conditions of the standard, the Registrar confirms the registration and publishes the certificate.

9. Continual improvement and surveillance audits:

Once an organization is registered, surveillance activi - ties are conducted by the Certification Body to ensure that the management system still complies with the standard. The surveillance activities must include on-site visits (at least 1 per year) that allow veri - fying the conformity of the certified client’s management system and can also include: investigations following a complaint, review of a website, a written request for follow-up, etc

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REGISTRAR

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ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management System