The new 2015 revision of ISO 14001, the leading international standard for designing and implementing an Environmental Management System, is finally in front of us.
The new version of ISO 14001 is aligned with Annex SL, which makes it more compatible with other management systems standards and makes the integration even easier.
Companies certified against the 2004 revision of ISO 14001 must transition to the new version by September 2018.
The new version has 10 clauses instead of the four in the old version, and instead of 12, there are now 16 mandatory documents.
There are some new requirements, but the most significant are Context of the organization (Clause 4) and Actions to address risks and opportunities (Clause 6.1). The idea behind these new requirements is to make the EMS a part of everyday business activities and vice versa. Environmental targets, management representative, and preventive actions are no longer part of ISO 14001.
Environmental Policy, Leadership, Competence, Training and awareness, Management review, Internal audit, and Corrective action had only slight changes. Moderate changes include Identification and evaluation of environmental aspects, Environmental objectives and plans for achieving them, Emergency preparedness and response, Performance evaluation, Document management, and Communication and the EMS.
The last is a group of new requirements that has to be established and incorporated into the existing EMS from scratch. Risks and opportunities, Context of the organization, and Interested parties are new requirements.
ISO 14001:2015 will bring to your EMS:
To learn more about the changes, check out this list of materials on the ISO 14001:2015 revision brought to you by the 14001 Academy experts.
Very Nice infographic, Could we use it on our website, with proper credits