ISO 14001 – Environmental Mgt.

ISO 14001 ensures your business is executing ethical environmental practices on a daily basis. It provides tools and tips to reduce your environmental impact and improve environmental performance.

ISO 14001 sets out a plan that a company or organization can follow to ensure an environmentally conscious management system is being implemented. It can be utilized by any business or organization regardless of industry, activity, or sector.

It assures your business is executing good environmental practices without compromising quality, performance, or service. Seeking an ISO 14001 certification gains the trust of customers and stakeholders that your business is running smoothly with environmentally conscious practices. It also reassures management and employees that your business is aware of future impact, securing the stability of your business.

ISO 14001 has been implemented by approximately 230,000 organizations in 159 countries.

While there were earlier standards for environmental management systems, ISO first released its 14001 standard in 1996. The current version is ISO 14001:2015.

The ISO 14001 environmental management system standard was developed by an internationally selected standards committee to help all types of organizations develop plans to minimize their impact on the environment, especially to minimize pollution.

ISO 14001 environmental management systems primarily take a preventative approach to environmental impact and pollution by:

Identifying aspects arising from the organizations operations that could impact the environment

Determining the potential impact the aspects could have on the environment

Identifying operational controls including monitoring and measuring methods where appropriate to help minimize the potential environmental impact

Implementing the controls and monitoring compliance with and effectiveness of the controls

Taking corrective action when an organizations has impacted the environment

Learning from non-conformances and incidents and determining appropriate action to help the organization prevent further incidents.

Furthermore, there is a focus on:

Communication

Legal compliance

Emergencies

Training and competency.

As with ISO 9001, ISO 13485, and ISO 45001, it is good management practice to develop written environmental policies and procedures. Written policies and procedures are effective for helping an organization plan, communicate, check, enforce, and continually improve so that an organization is better able to minimize its impact on the environment.

If understood and implemented correctly, an ISO 14001 environmental management system should quickly pay for itself both financially and environmentally. We all know that resources cost money, and by implementing systems to help identify and minimize resource use, a savvy organization should reap these benefits quickly.

As the world becomes more and more environmentally conscious (including employees), the smart choice is to implement a standards compliant ISO 14001 environmental management system and enjoy the marketing benefits of recognition that comes from ISO 14001 certification.

Please Read more about the ISO standards and gaining certification to the ISO standards by selecting the following links:

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