ISO 14001
The Standard For Environmental Management Systems
Our unique method can get you ready for ISO certification in as quick as 30 days with no compromises.
Our unique method can get you ready for ISO certification in as quick as 30 days with no compromises.
ISO 14001 ensures your business is executing ethical environmental practices on a daily basis. It provides tools and tips to reduce your environmental impact and improve environmental performance.
The standard sets out a plan that a company or organization can follow to ensure an environmentally conscious management system is being implemented. It can be utilized by any business or organization regardless of industry, activity, or sector.
It assures your business is executing good environmental practices without compromising quality, performance, or service. Seeking an ISO 14001 certification gains the trust of customers and stakeholders that your business is running smoothly with environmentally conscious practices. It also reassures management and employees that your business is aware of future impact, securing the stability of your business.
ISO 14001 has been implemented by approximately 230,000 organizations in 159 countries.
While there were earlier standards for environmental management systems (EMS), ISO first released its 14001 standard in 1996. The current version is ISO 14001:2015.
The ISO 14001 environmental management system standard was developed by an internationally selected standards committee to help all types of organizations develop plans to minimize their impact on the environment, especially to minimize pollution.
As with ISO 9001, ISO 13485, and ISO 45001, it is good management practice to develop written environmental policies and procedures. Written policies and procedures are effective for helping an organization plan, communicate, check, enforce, and continually improve so that an organization is better able to minimize its impact on the environment.
We, at Compliancehelp Consulting LLC have the ISO 14001 certification consultants who will help understand and implement the EMS correctly so that it quickly pays your business both financially and environmentally. We all know that resources cost money, and by implementing systems to help identify and minimize resource use, a savvy organization should reap these benefits quickly.
As the world becomes more and more environmentally conscious (including employees), the smart choice is to implement the ISO 14001 environmental management system and enjoy the marketing benefits of recognition that come from the certification.
ISO 14001: 2015 needs the organizations to adopt a set of practices and procedures that together constitute a comprehensive EMS. These are the key requirements underlined by the standard which organizations need to fulfill for implementing their EMS.
1. Context of the Organization: Firstly, the organizations need to understand their context with respect to the standard. They shall recognize all the internal factors as well as external issues that either influence the purpose of the EMS or affect the objectives to be achieved by the EMS. The factors also include the expectations or needs of the different interested bodies of the organization. Understanding the context helps in establishing the structure of the EMS and implementing it.
2. Leadership and Commitment: This requirement highlights the significant role of the top management members in the implementation and maintenance of the EMS. Their participation ensures that the EMS gets a definite direction in your organization and employees become accountable for its effectiveness. They will define an environmental policy, set of objectives, and communicate specific responsibilities to the employees.
3. Planning– This section highlights the need to evaluate the organization’s current environmental framework and potential risks to determine the objectives of the EMS. This requirement also needs you to analyze the key environmental interactions of your organization as well as legal environmental obligations.
4. Support: This requirement implies your organization should be prepared with all the resources necessary for implementing, maintaining and improving the EMS. The resources also include communication, awareness, employee competence and documented information.
5. Operation: This section calls for organizations to determine, implement and improve the processes and practices that are required for meeting the purpose of EMS. It also includes deciding the actions for responding to emergency situations.
6. Performance Evaluation: Fulfilling this requirement shall ensure that your EMS performs efficiently and helps your organization progress towards the proposed objectives. To evaluate the performance of the EMS, your organization should monitor the processes to identify if any
of its aspects needs improvement.
7. Improvement: The EMS shall be also reviewed periodically to identify nonconformity issues and any other weaknesses so that you can take corrective actions to resolve them. Constantly reviewing the conformity of EMS ensures that it is improved in the long run.
The interest of both big businesses and SMEs in implementing the ISO 14001 environmental management system is increasing day by day. However, you do not have to just jump into the decision to investing in it. First learn about its benefits and understand how you can reap environmental as well as commercial advantages out of it.
Improved Environmental Performance: With the ISO 14001 certification, your business is able to control the environmental impacts of its activities or reduce them to minimum. It also enables you to reduce resource uses by following practices like recycling or reuse and contribute towards sustainability.
Absolute Legal & Regulatory Compliance: Getting ISO 14001 certified enables your organization to recognize your compliance obligations that come from environmental legislation and industry regulations and meet them. By ensuring legal compliance, your business stays away from any breaches, litigation cases or penalties.
Reduction in Operational Costs: By reducing the wastes released from your business operations and using resources efficiently including energy, you can save up a lot of costs.
Competitive Advantage and Newer Opportunities: ISO 14001, being an international certification for EMS benchmarks your business’s environmental performance and make it stand out in the competition. This opens up a door for new opportunities as organizations look for suppliers or partners that have such credentials in terms of promoting environmental sustainability.
Improved Relationship with Stakeholders: The certification demonstrates that your business is proactive in preventing environmental impacts and enhancing sustainability, which leaves a positive impression of your business on the stakeholders and strengthens the relationship with
them.
Getting started with the ISO 14001 certification procedure might seem complex to you but our expert ISO 14001 consultants will make it easier for you with trouble-free steps.
1. Consultation: In the first step, we would discuss with you the details of the ISO 14001 requirements and provide consultation to help you understand their relevance in your business and processes. Our consultants would then help you planning the next steps to meet the
criteria for successful certification within a decided timeframe.
2. Document Your EMS: Our consultants would help you determine the scope and objectives of your EMS. Following that, they would evaluate your existing processes to determine how they will interact with the EMS. Subsequently, they would help you to prepare a document of the
processes and EMS, as they required by the standard. The document establishes how your employees should execute the processes to adhere to the standard’s requirements.
3. Implementation of EMS: Once the documentation is complete, you need to provide training to the employees to ensure the EMS is practically put into place. Training is necessary to ensure the system is efficiently integrated throughout your organization and there is consistency in the role of employees.
4. Internal Audit: Our team also has expert auditors who will analyze your processes and EMS to find out any inconsistencies and nonconformities. They would then provide recommendations to correct or fix those identified issues to ensure your business is fully compliant and
certification ready.
5. Certification: You need to apply for certification to a certification body. They would perform external audit and get your business certified after affirming the compliance of your EMS. Our consultants will help to maintain your certification in the long run by periodically following up and performing surveillance audits.
We ensure that your ISO 14001 Environmental Management System is well embedded into your organization, no matter how complex or large it is. We will make it a core part of your business strategy, enabling you to improve your environmental performance consistently. We offer ISO consulting services and necessary training support to help you implement the EMS in a way that it maximizes your benefits.
Our ISO 14001 certification consultants will make your journey towards certification success easier and faster for you. This is why we are chosen by many businesses. Our consultants will help you comprehend the standard well, guide you in documenting the EMS and carefully audit your business to ensure it achieves ISO 14001 compliance.
We also provide our services with a tailored approach depending on the size or complexities of the business that help our clients to optimize the costs for certification preparation.
If you want your business to get ISO 14001 certified, contact our team today and we will help to implement the EMS and achieve compliance in a speedy manner.
ISO 14001 is an international regulatory standard for Environmental Management System (EMS). It provides organizations with a set of requirements for developing, implementing, and consistently improving their EMS. The EMS is a comprehensive management framework that helps businesses to reduce the impacts of their operations on the environment and ensure the sustainability of resources. Achieving the ISO 14001 certification will hence prove that your organization has implemented the best EMS to fulfill the commitment to environmental protection and using the Earth’s resources consciously.
The ISO 14001 certification is an internationally accepted certification for EMS and hence, achieving it will help your business to stand out from the competitors in terms of environmental performance.
The interest of businesses in environmental management is increasing day by day as impacts and consequences like climate change, global warming, soil depletion, contamination of water, polluting of air are becoming evident. Any business that feels the need to protect the environment with a greener approach and strong policies can get the ISO 14001 certification regardless it is a small-sized business, an SME or a large multinational corporation.
The costs for getting certified vary with businesses and it depends on some key factors which are size of business, type of industry, and complexities in the processes. Employing the ISO 14001 certification consultants will help in optimizing your costs because they can provide you with a methodical approach and speed up your preparation process for the certification.
Thus, the cost for certification entails the resource costs (resources needed to implement and maintain the EMS), training costs (if training courses are required by you), and fees of the consultants.
We provide a simple 5 step process to make your business fully ready and eligible for ISO 14001 in the shortest possible time.
1. Initial consultation where our consultants discuss the standard’s requirements and help you understand them.
2. Formal assessment or gap analysis of your existing environmental practices to find which requirements are not met or half met.
3. Document preparation involves formulating the EMS according to the ISO 14001 standard by closing all the gaps identified before
4. Correct implementation of the EMS by deploying the right resources and by ensuring proper training of employees
5. Internal audit to check whether the EMS complies with the ISO 14001 requirements
On completion of the fifth step i.e., after passing the audit, you can confidently apply for certification and be assured that your business will get certified successfully.
ISO 14001 focuses on the implementation of an Environmental Management System that helps businesses to reduce or minimize their impacts on the external environment including natural resources, living habitats in their surroundings, and local communities. ISO 45001, on the other hand, helps organizations to focus on minimizing risks or hazards in their internal environment i.e., within the workplace. It emphasizes the implementation of the Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS) which helps to assess, identify and eliminate risks of occupational injuries and sicknesses at the workplace. The ISO 45001 standard hence ensures the safety and wellbeing of their valuable employees or workers.