The ISO 14001 standard details requirements for Environmental management systems and the aim of this standard is to help organisations to formally identify and review the impact their activities could potentially have on the environment and to develop procedures and mechanisms to control any potential environmental impact.

The current version of the standard, ISO 14001:2015, is structured following Annex SL and therefore the clauses are very similar to the structure of ISO 9001 and other Annex SL standards. The standard requires a clearly defined organisational structure with roles and responsibilities defined with the involvement and commitment from top management. Other requirements of this standard are that documented information is controlled, risks and opportunities are considered and that actions to address risks and opportunities are identified and managed.

A key area of the standard is emergency preparedness and response and it is therefore important to ensure that effective resources and checks are in place to ensure the organisation can respond to any environmental incidents such as a spillage. A formal review of environmental impacts is a key part of demonstrating that emergency response has been fully reviewed and processes put in place to respond to incidents and mitigate impact on the environment.

This standard can be applied by office based organisations who perhaps have very little scope for having an impact on the environment. To demonstrate compliance it is necessary to demonstrate formal review of compliance obligations and maintenance of a register of environmental legislation and mechanism for review and receiving updates, whether in the form of a subscription / update service or by getting updates from a 3rd party can demonstrate this.

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Meeting the requirements of this standard

There are various clauses in this standard where there is a requirement to have and retain documented information for various things like Management Review, Internal Audits and an Environmental Policy.

isoassured can assist with preparation of management systems to meet the requirements of this standard - check our ISO Consultancy page for details of how we can help with onsite consultancy, remote consultancy or by using of our alpha-Z documents package to meet the requirements of this standard.

ISO 14001 Certification process

We offer a simple, smart, certification process to provide independent confirmation that your organisation meets the requirements of the ISO 14001 standard and once an audit has been completed with a satisfactory outcome we issue an ISO14001 registration certificate and authorise the organisation to display our 'ISO 14001 Registered' logo.

Further details on our certification service are available on the ISO Certification page.