ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems (EMS)

Implementation of an environmental management system (EMS) will, in addition to ensuring a commitment to comply with environmental legislation, provide re-assurance to customers and the general public of the commitment of the organisation to minimising adverse environmental impacts caused as a direct result of business activities. The resource utilisation and energy-saving aspects will also have an impact on the 'bottom line'.

EMS Systems can be established to meet the requirements of ISO 14001, BS 8555(Project Acorn) or EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme).

Customers using the products or services of an organisation or consultancy that is registered to ISO 14001 by a UKAS Accredited Certification Body can be assured that the organisation has:

• An environmental policy that is available to the public

• Committed itself to continual improvement in environmental performance

• Environmental objectives and targets in place to facilitate continual improvement

• Commitment to compliance with all applicable environmental legislation

• A regularly audited environmental management system

Background to ISO 14001

ISO 14001 was first published in 1996 based on the British Standard for Environmental Management Systems BS 7750.

It follows the same plan – do – check - act cycle as ISO 9001 and indeed the content of many of the clauses is identical e.g. control of documents.

A revised version was published in 2004 but, as credit to the original version, the actual changes were minimal. The most significant changes being:

• The environmental policy was intended to apply to ‘employees’ but now covers all persons working on behalf of the organisation e.g. suppliers and contractors
• There is a new clause requiring documented evaluation of compliance to applicable legislation and other requirements. This requirement was in the previous version but hidden within another clause and not obvious

Environmental management systems can be implemented to meet the requirements of ISO 14001 or BS 8555 and either registered by a UKAS Accredited Certification Body or maintained to meet all the requirements but not formally registered.