In this article you will learn why ISO 14001 is important for business and what is the requirements for any organization.
What Does ISO 14001?
ISO 14001, one of the type of ISO Certification, specifies the requirements for any organization. It stresses any organization to be able to claim that they have an environmental management system or EMS, that conforms to specifications set by the globally recognized International Organization for standard ISO.
This vision of the standard as a high-level structure almost identical to ISO 9001, for quality management which makes it easy and desirable to integrate environmental and quality policies objectives and processes into one management system. In ISO standards the various numbered sections are referred to as clauses after some introduction and definitions the actual requirements of the ISO 14001 which standard are contained in poises 4 to 10.
How To Start ISO 14001?
You have to start by understanding your organization and its context its external and internal issues that are relevant to environmental management either because the organization’s activities will have an effect on the environment or the environment can impact on the organization then you have to determine who are interested parties such as regulators neighbours and employees and gain a general high-level understanding of the needs and expectations that they have expressed and which are relevant to the organization’s environmental management.
Now you have to define the scope of your EMS taking into account such things as your location your activities products and services you internal and external issues and the relevant interested parties everything within your scope must be covered. By your EMS clause five requires top management to show environmental commitment and leadership by holding themselves accountable.
For the EMS being effective this starts with establishing an appropriate environmental policy that lays the foundation and provides the framework for setting environmental objectives for the organization that ensure protection of the environment and prevention of pollution that goes to the spirit and not merely the letter of regulatory compliance ensuring effectiveness also means providing the Human Resources with whatever authority is needed to establish and make the EMS conform to the standard and report on the effectiveness of its performance to top management Clause.
six talks about environmental aspects which are elements of an organization’s activities or products or services that interact or can interact with the environment taking these into account this clause requires your organization to develop a process to consider the risks and opportunities that could affect the performance of your organization’s EMS and to use this risk planning process to plan.
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How to meet the requirements and issues relating to interested parties that were identified?
In this context of the organization secondly taking the organization’s environmental aspects into account Clause 6 requires that you set environmental objectives at relevant levels and functions and to develop a plan of actions to achieve these objectives clause 7 does drives the requirement to determine the resources needed for an effective and continually improving EMS. In particular you have to ensure that the people aren’t not only trained but competent with regard to the organization’s environmental aspects they must be aware not only of their EMS responsibilities but also the implications of non-compliance with regulations and not conforming with EMS requirements.
What Is The Requirement Process For Controlling EMS?
The requirement for processes establishing and controlling EMS related communications is laid out in some detail covering the need to know what are when and with whom both within and beyond. The organization finally clause 7 requires that you properly and responsibly manage EMS documents and records you start by determining how extensive your documentation needs to be and then ensure that all of.
The EMS relevant documents and records are properly controlled clause 8 is about putting into effect the planning that was done in clause 6 by actually establishing your EMS processes and controlling how they operate this includes having to control out sourced processes and controlling things like transport delivery and disposal where these might have environmental aspects.
Finally you are required by Clause 8 to prepare for potential emergency situations that were identified under planning in 6.1 and to establish processes to deal with these situations should they arise clause 9 requires that an organization shall monitor measure analyse and evaluate its environmental performance and the effectiveness of its EMS planning what when and what methods to use for measuring special attention must be paid to evaluating regulatory compliance requirements and taking appropriate action when necessary.
Internal audits of the EMS shall be conducted at planned intervals and the audit results must be reported to top and other relevant management finally picking up from Clause five on leadership Clause nine requires top management to review the organization’s EMS. At planned intervals to ensure its continuing suitability adequacy and effectiveness and to document the results of these management reviews, firstly Clause 10 requires the organization to determine opportunities for improvement of the EMS and take necessary actions after evaluation.
Then when a nonconformity occurs you have to control and correct it and deal with any immediate consequential environmental impact once it has been contained and impact addressed you are required to evaluate the need for corrective action to eliminate whatever caused the nonconformity and prevent similar potential non-conformities from occurring.
Conclusion:
Finally, the organization is required to take steps to continually improve the suitability adequacy and effectiveness of the EMS
