ISO 14001
WHAT IS THE ENVIRONMENT
- Surroundings in which an organization operates including air, water, land, natural resources, flora, fauna, humans and their interrelation as an Environmental system
WHAT IS AN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (EMS):
- Part of an organization’s management system used to develop and implement its environmental policy and manage its environmental aspects.
WHY IMPLEMENT BS EN ISO 14001 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS?
- To minimise your organisation’s business risks associated with how it interacts with the environment.
- Environmental control leads to cost control e.g. efficiency of products and services and the best use of materials and by-products.
- Planning to prevent and reduce pollution and waste is cheaper than cleaning up after the event.
ADVANTAGES OF BS EN ISO 14001 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
- Increased profitability and competitiveness
- Decreased energy cost
- Decreased waste costs
- Better industrial and public relations
- Reduced insurance premiums.
- It can be a condition of getting a licence to operate
- It enables effective cost control
- It gives better access to product and capital markets
- It improves relations with the general public.
IMPLEMENTING ISO 14001
- Define the context of the organisation by defining internal issues, external issues and interested parties. Define the needs and expectations of the interested parties.
- Define the organisation’s environmental aspects and their significant aspects. Define the risks and opportunities to the business from this analysis.
- From the above define the scope of the EMS system and also define the required measurable EMS objectives.
- Define the Legal and other requirements which are applicable to the above scope of the EMS.
- Review the existing EMS documents and procedures. Compare these with the documents and procedures required by the ISO 14001 standard. Clarify also the EMS standard forms that are in use and what forms are required.
- Define the full documentation required. Define a simple electronic folder structure to keep all the documents. Produce a project action list defining responsibilities of project personnel
- Check with the Certification Body the method and timing for the stage One and Stage Two assessment
