ISO 14001 is one of the group of sixteen ISO 14000 standards, which have been developed by the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO). ISO is a network comprised of national standards institutes and describes itself as being ‘the world’s largest developer and publisher of International Standards’. It has developed more than 18,500 international standards and publishes around 1,100 new standards each year.
The ISO 14000 group of standards is concerned with companies’ environmental management processes. The first environmental management standard in the world, BS 7750, was produced by the British Standards Institute and was issued in 1992, the same year as the Rio Earth Summit. This standard provided a template for the ISO 14000 series. ISO 14001 was first published in 1996; a revised edition was issued in 2004. The standard is now being used in more than 159 countries and, according to ISO’s latest figures, more than 223,000 companies and organisations have been certified. Environmental standards are intended to help companies minimise the impact of their business activities upon the environment by improving performance over time.
Adoption of ISO 14001 is voluntary, but in many countries government agencies favour companies that are accredited when conducting procurement processes. The standard is not prescriptive. It allows companies to set their own objectives and goals. It is primarily concerned with the process by which these objectives and goals are met and the methods for monitoring progress. ISO 14001 divides the environmental management process into four stages.
Preliminary to the creation of an environmental management system (EMS) is the adoption of an environmental policy. This establishes the company’s commitment to improving its environmental performance through the adoption of an environmental management system . Once such a policy has been adopted, the company should begin to plan its EMS strategy. To be able to do so, the company needs to identify the impact that its activities and products have on the environment at that moment in time. This provides a baseline against which progress can be measured. It should also identify any current or incoming legal requirements that the organisation needs to or will need to meet. Having understood its baseline position and the mandatory requirements that it faces, company should set goals and objectives for its EMS and develop programmes to enable them to be achieved.
Having put these plans in place, a company should begin to implement its programmes. This implementation process is likely to require employee education programmes to ensure that employees have the skills needed to enable them to change their work practices in order to allow the company to grow. The third stage of the process is to monitor the progress of programmes towards the goals and objectives that have been set in place. The final stage is to revise the plan that has been created by taking into account the progress that has been achieved and the changes to the company’s business and regulatory environment that have had to been made. By following these steps, companies can work to ensure that their business model becomes more sustainable over time.
For more information on ISO 14001, please see the ISO website (www.iso.org).
Reducing Energy Usage of New Developments
Reducing Water Usage of New Developments
Encouraging Biodiversity on New Developments
Reducing Construction Waste
Becoming a Sustainable Business
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ISO 14001 Accreditation
