Who’s it for?
ISO14001 is the most common environmental accreditation standard that stakeholders will request. Companies that may be asked as a contractual requirement to achieve ISO14001 include the following:
- Automotive industry and their suppliers
- Large supermarkets and their suppliers
- Local and national government organisations and their suppliers
- Energy companies and their suppliers
- Manufacturers and their suppliers
Forward-thinking companies recognise that ISO14001 is something their contractors may soon request, and will begin working towards accreditation now, in order to ensure long-term success.
What’s involved?
ISO 14001 is the most widely recognised international environmental standard. It is designed to help organisations put in place the necessary structures to ensure that their operations comply with environmental laws and that major environmental risks and liabilities are properly identified, minimised and managed.
Put simply, ISO 14001 provides a mechanism for ensuring that an organisation:
- thinks about the environment
- decides what it wants to do
- works out how to do it
- actually does it
- corrects deviations from the plan
- reviews its directions for the future so that it can do better next time.
The main elements of ISO 14001 are:
- An environmental policy which should commit you to legislative/regulatory compliance, continual improvement, the prevention of pollution and to appropriate objectives and targets.
- A planning stage which covers a review of environmental aspects along with legal and other requirements; objectives and targets; and the setting up of a management programme to achieve them.
- An implementation and operation stage which includes management structure, training, communications, documentation, operational control and emergency preparedness. It means providing resources for your staff, defining who does what, identifying training needs, communicating effectively and exerting effective control over the activities relevant to your significant environmental impacts.
- Checking and taking corrective actions to show that progress towards objectives and targets is on course; taking action to rectify any non conformance with environmental policy or legal requirements; recording the operation of your EMS; and conducting audits to identify problems and to prove conformity with your requirements.
- A management review to ensure that the system continues to be suitable, adequate and effective through changes made in the light of experience.
This process can seem daunting and time consuming; Business Envestors has 10 years experience in helping companies achieve ISO14001 hassle free.
For more information on how we can help you contact us.