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ISO 14001

The ISO14000 series is a set of guidelines and requirements to encourage all types of enterprises from different sectors to put in place voluntary environmental management systems (EMS) in their premises. EMS help tackling all environmental aspects of an office according to the logic of “plan-do-check-act”: identify impacts, and adopt policies, plans and actions to improve continuously.

ISO 14001:2004 is the most famous standard of the series because it allows for an external certification of the EMS of a company working site.

ISO 14001 is a certification tool for offices, factories, not a label for individual products. It certifies a type of management, not its production.

ISO 14001 is a tool that can be used to meet internal objectives by providing assurance to management and employees that they are working for an environmentally responsible organization. It can also serve external objectives such as providing assurance to stakeholders (buyers, customers, authorities), comply with the environmental regulations, support the organization claims and communicate about its own environmental policies.

The ISO 14001 certification needs an external audit by an official trained auditor. It is valid 3 years. A new external audit must be performed to renew it.

Information

Source

http://www.iso.org/iso/home.htm

Remarks

ISO 14001 is a voluntary commitment for environmental improvement. It does not oblige to show improvement in the performances of the company nor to publish the environmental results. EMAS, the European Eco Management and Audit Scheme is a very similar tool set up by the European Commission in 1995 (reviewed in 2004) but it requests the publication of environmental results through an official declaration.

Purpose - Implementation, certification