Changes to ISO 14001
Paul Downing
Changes to ISO 14001.
ISO 14001: 2004 has an uptake of 25,000 new companies a year and is still the best know management system standard for organisations who want to promote their awareness and management of environmental related issues.
Recently, approximately 25 new changes to ISO 14001 were considered including,
- Consideration of the supply chain
- The use of KPI’s (similar to ISO 50001)
- A clearer link to strategic business management
- Strengthening the need to gather information about interested parties needs and expectations (similar to ISO 50001)
- Focus on results (within the systems approach)
- Written using the high level core language of ISO 9000 & ISO 50001/18001
Whilst most changes will have little or no effect on those organisations who wish to gain a “badge”, those organisations who wish to get some payback from their system have been including such issues over and above the certificate requirements for a while.
Standard standardisation (yes I mean this!) will be the biggest improvement to ensure that ISO 9000, OHSAS 18001 and ISO 14001 are structured in a similar way.
For organisations wishing to implement an effective system I see little or no cause to be concerned at the proposed tweaks and changes to ISO 14001.
The new changes will be publicly available after a period of committee meetings and other interesting debate!
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