The organization shall determine external and internal issues that are relevant to its purpose and that affect its ability to achieve the intended outcome of its environmental management system. It requires a better and more strategic understanding of all the factors affecting the way organizations manage their environmental responsibilities.
When it comes to value chain planning and control, ISO 14001:2015 will introduce a new set of requirements to manage or influence upstream and downstream processes. Environmental objectives shall be linked to the organization´s processes and have to take into account internal and external factors as well as compliance obligations. Value stream planning requires managing upstream and downstream processes, including outsourced processes. The life cycle perspective requires organizations to look beyond its boundaries. In the DIS version we see environmental performance gain prominence while addressing risk life cycle of products and, understanding the needs and concerns of interested parties in the context of the organization. It went through several internal draft stages and has published the Final Draft of International Standard (FDIS) in July 2015, which already gives us a clear picture of the expected changes of structure and content: Adoption of the High Level Structure: During the last correction of the standard in 2009 which did not include new requirements, ISO announced a deeper revision which is now expected to be concluded in the middle of the year 2015.īased on the results of the “Future Challenges for EMS Study Group” which evaluated potential implications of evolving stakeholder expectations and new developments in environmental management systems, the responsible ISO committee started its work in 2012. In 2004 a first revision introduced minor changes to ISO 14001, in order to align it better with the ISO 9001 Quality Management Standard, to make its requirements clearer and to facilitate the integration of quality and environmental management systems.
The popularity of ISO 14001 is also a result of the continuous efforts to revise and update the standard, keeping it in line with current ecological, political and social developments.
A certified environmental management system is a good preventive tool and helps to be in compliance with legal and other requirements.
Organizations benefit from the implementation of an environmental management system based on ISO 14001 by improving their environmental performance, saving resources, energy and money. Based on a former British Standard (BS 7750), it was published in 1996 and since then over 300.000 companies worldwide implemented an environmental management system based on the standard’s requirements.
ISO 14001 is one of the most successful ISO management standards.