» Back to listing New version of ISO14001 remains on track

20th February 2015

The new version of ISO14001 remains on track to be published by September after the latest meeting of the group working on the revision.

A recent global poll on the benefits of ISO14001 revealed that users believe it brings significant value to their business by ensuring legal compliance (77%), boosting environmental performance (74%), and engaging managers (68%) and employees (62%). The respondents also report that the standard helps them to meet the requirements of their stakeholders (58%), improve their public image (58%) and ensure strategic objectives are met (55%).

The new revision will be more compatible with other management systems, such as ISO 9001:2015, ISO 50001:2011 and the forthcoming ISO 45001:2016, which will make integration more effective. The key changes to ISO 14001 relate to:

Strategic Environmental Management – An increased prominence of environmental management within the organisation’s strategic planning processes.
Leadership – Specific responsibilities are assigned for those in leadership roles to promote environmental management within the organisation.
Protecting the environment – The expectation of organisations has been expanded to commit to proactive initiatives to protect the environment from harm and degradation.
Environmental performance – There is a shift in emphasis with regard to continual improvement, from improving the management system to improving environmental performance.
Lifecycle thinking – In addition to the current requirement to manage environmental aspects associated with procured goods and services, organisations will need to extend their control and influence to the environmental impacts associated with product use and end-of-life treatment or disposal.
Communication – The development of a communications strategy with equal emphasis on external and internal communications has been added.
Documentation – Reflecting the evolution of computer/cloud based systems, the revision incorporates the term ‘documented information’, instead of ‘documents’ and ‘records’.

For further information on the development and maintenance of ISO 14001 or the implications of the changes please contact Dan Wellington dan.wellington@peakhse.co.uk 0114272 0335 .