ISO 14001 & OHSAS 18001 at The Nichols Group

In November 2006 I received an enquiry from The Nichols Group, Savile Row, London, for consultancy assistance to achieve ISO 14001 & OHSAS 18001 registrations.

The Nichols Group is a highly respected management consultancy advising on and managing large-scale complex and rapid changes in transport, central government, finance and utilities. They have been trading for over 30 years and currently employ approximately 75 full-time consultants operating in the field and 20 administration staff based at Savile Row. They also have a large number of associates who are engaged on an ad-hoc basis to undertake consultancy projects.

The organisation has held ISO 9001 approval for approximately 10 years, the certification body being SGS. The requirement was to implement an environmental management system and an occupational health & safety management system and have them assessed and registered to ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001

I met the organisation in November 2006. They were keen to include environmental management in their consultancy contracts but felt that they themselves needed to be registered to ISO 14001 first. At the initial meeting the subject of health & safety management was mentioned but not seen as such a high priority as environmental management. After I explained the many similarities in the two standards it was agreed to work on both in parallel. It was also mentioned that their existing quality management system was in need of revitalising. It was then agreed to introduce an Integrated Management System (IMS) based on PAS 99 to encompass the three management system standards.

The project started in February 2007 and it was made known that registration to ISO 14001 was a business priority and was required as soon as possible (OHSAS 18001 was perceived as being less critical).

I managed the complete project, taking a total of 34 days of my time (other days dedicated to QMS activities are not included in this total) and significant milestones in the consultancy project are as follows:

February 2007  Initial Environmental Review conducted
February 2007  Register of Environmental Aspects & Impacts compiled
February 2007  Register of Legislation compiled
March 2007  Process flowcharts finalised
March 2007  Integrated Management System (IMS) Manual published
April 2007  EMS & OHS internal audits conducted
May 2007  EMS & OHS document reviews by SGS (on-site)
June 2007  Management Review
September 2007 On-site assessment (two assessors, one day) by SGS resulted in registration being recommended to ISO 14001 & OHSAS 18001 with two minor nonconformities observed.

My consultancy services are being retained to maintain the integrated management system and at some time in the future to lead projects to include a business continuity management system to BS 25999 and an information security management system to ISO 27001.