Background
Organizations around the world, as well as their stakeholders, are becoming increasingly aware of the need for environmental management, socially responsible behaviour, and sustainable growth and development.
Accordingly, as the proactive management of environment aspects converges with risk management, corporate governance and sound operational and financial practices and performance, international standards are becoming increasingly important for organizations to work towards common and comparable environmental management practice to support the sustainability of their organizations, products and services.
Furthermore, government and regulatory bodies are increasingly invoking to ISO Standards to provide a framework to ensure alignment of consistency both nationally and internationally.
ISO 14000 family - Environmental management
The ISO 14000 family of standards provides practical tools for companies and organizations of all kinds looking to manage their environmental responsibilities.
ISO 14001:2015 and its supporting standards such as ISO 14006:2011 focus on environmental systems to achieve this. The other standards in the family focus on specific approaches such as audits, communications, labelling and life cycle analysis, as well as environmental challenges such as climate change.
The ISO 14000 family of standards are developed by ISO Technical Committee ISO/TC 207 and its various subcommittees. The following guidelines are useful for the implementation of an Environmental Management System
ISO 14004:2016 Environmental management systems - General guidelines on implementation
ISO 14005:2010 Environmental management systems- Guidelines for the phased implementation of an environmental management system, including the use of environmental performance evaluation
ISO 14006:2011 Environmental management systems- Guidelines for incorporating eco-design
For a full list of published standards in the series see their standards catalogue.
ISO 14001:2015 Environmental management systems – Requirements with guidance for use.
ISO 14001:2015 sets out the criteria for an environmental management system and can be certified to. It maps out a framework that a company or organization can follow to set up an effective environmental management system. It can be used by any organization regardless of its activity or sector.
Using ISO 14001:2015 can provide assurance to company management and employees as well as external stakeholders that environmental impact is being measured and improved.
There are more than 300,000 certifications to ISO 14001 in 171 countries around the world.
