International Standard - ISO 140001
This is an international environmental management system specification standard with guidance, approved by the European standards body CEN in 1996 and subsequently revised in 2004. It is closely related to the ISO 9000 series of quality system standards and focuses on achieving continual environmental improvement. ISO is an abbreviation for International Organisation for Standards, EN for European standards and BS for British Standards. 2004 is the date the standard was last published.
It replaced the British Standard for environmental management systems BS 7750, which was first, published in 1992. Hence the full designation of ISO 14001 in the UK is BS EN ISO14001:2004, which is usually abbreviated to ISO 14001. There are other standards in the series. BS EN ISO14004:1996 gives guidance on implementing an EMS, but is not a specification standard. Similarly, BS EN ISO 14031:2000 is a guidance standard for environmental performance evaluation.
ISO 14001 specifies a set of minimum requirements for an EMS, and is intended to be applicable to all types and sizes of organisation. ISO 14001 is what is known as a 'specification standard', and is written in mandatory terms. This means that the EMS must fulfil certain criteria and be audited by an external certification body before an ISO 14001certificate can be awarded.
The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) is responsible in the UK for accrediting certification bodies such as BSI, Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Limited, Moody International Certification Limited and National Quality Assurance Limited. A full list of accredited organisations can be found on the UKAS web site (www.ukas.co.uk). These certification bodies will send external auditors to assess whether or not your EMS conforms to the ISO 14001 standard. If it does, they have the authority to issue your organisation with an ISO 14001 certificate. If you wish to maintain this certificate, you will have to be externally audited on a regular basis. Copies of the ISO standards can be obtained from the International Organisation for Standardization website (www.iso.ch).
If you are interested in working towards ISO 14001 please feel free to contact us to discuss the possible consultancy, software or training support.
