Environmental Management Systems and ISO 14001 Certification What is ISO 14001?

Environmental Management Systems and ISO 14001 Certification
What is ISO 14001?
ISO 14001 is a framework for an Environmental Management System and thereby provides a means of ensuring that your business or organisation considers all aspects of its operation that either actually or potentially have some impact on the environment. The impact may often be some form of resulting pollution but can also relate to consumption of non-renewable resources.

ISO 14001 is also being used increasingly as a marketing tool to advertise an organisation's environmental credentials to any potential customers as well as other interested parties.

The following briefly describes the main areas of consideration if implementing ISO 14001:

Policy and Objectives
ISO 14001 requires a clear Environmental Policy statement and some improvement Objectives once the "Aspects" and "Impacts" have been identified. These may for example be to reduce an emission to a specified level, reduce electricity consumption or to recycle more. The policy statement also must be publicly available.
Defining your Environmental "Aspects"
It is necessary to identify the organisation's "Environmental Aspects"; these being the various ways that the organisation interacts with or impacts on the environment. The Aspects may be very obvious in say a chemical or steel works, but can equally be applied to relatively clean service sector industries. In a simple office based business the environmental aspects would for example include the use of electricity, water resources and the means of general office waste disposal. Aspects and their respective Impacts will need to be prioritised or weighted in order that more serious issues are dealt with first.
Legal Requirements
There is an ever increasing amount of legislation relating to the environment and ISO 14001 requires its adherents to identify and keep abreast of all relevant legislation. This is likely to be the most difficult part of maintaining an EMS, but there are various on-line resources that can be used.

"the assessor was particularly complimentary about the environmental documentation & follow up." Waverley Contracting & Supply

Objectives Targets and Programmes
Based on the organisation’s Aspects and Impacts it is necessary to determine any improvements that can be made relating to them, whilst taking account of the importance or criticality of the particular Aspect. As with ISO 9001 the intention here is to put in place the means for continuous improvement.
Emergency Preparedness & Response
ISO 14001 also requires the organisation to prepare for any potential emergency situations where these may have an adverse impact on the environment. In an oil refinery for example a plan would exist to cater for major oil spillages in order to prevent widespread contamination, however all organisations are expected to put in place the necessary preventive actions depending on the emergency scenario envisaged, though in a simple office based environment this requirement will be fairly minimal - e.g. fire prevention.