ISO 14001 Certification

What Does ISO Mean?

ISO stands for the International Organization for Standardization, located in Geneva, Switzerland. ISO promotes the development and implementation of voluntary international standards, both for particular products and for environmental management issues. ISO 14000 refers to a series of voluntary standards in the environmental field under development by ISO. Included in the ISO 14000 series are the ISO 14001 EMS Standard and other standards in fields such as environmental auditing, environmental performance evaluation, environmental labeling, and life-cycle assessment.

What Are The Main Requirements of ISO 14001 Certification?

The ISO 14001 standard requires that a community or organization put in place and implement a series of practices and procedures that, when taken together, result in an environmental management system. ISO 14001 is not a technical standard and as such does not in any way replace technical requirements embodied in statutes or regulations. It also does not set prescribed standards of performance for organizations. The major requirements of an EMS under ISO 14001 include:

• A policy statement which includes commitments to prevention of pollution, continual improvement of the EMS leading to improvements in overall environmental performance, and compliance with all applicable statutory and regulatory requirements.
• Identification of all aspects of the community organization's activities, products, and services that could have a significant impact on the environment, including those that are not regulated
• Setting performance objectives and targets for the management system which link back to the three commitments established in the community or organization's policy (i.e. prevention of pollution, continual improvement, and compliance)
• Implementing the EMS to meet these objectives. This includes activities like training of employees, establishing work instructions and practices, and establishing the actual metrics by which the objectives and targets will be measured.
• Establishing a program to periodically audit the operation of the EMS
• Checking and taking corrective and preventive actions when deviations from the EMS occur, including periodically evaluating the organization's compliance with applicable regulatory requirements.
• Undertaking periodic reviews of the EMS by top management to ensure its continuing performance and making adjustments to it, as necessary.

Why Should You Obtain ISO 14001 Certification?

Because ISO 14001 is essentially a system designed to help any organization meet their environmental obligations and reduce the impact of their operations on the environment, it is relevant to all types of organizations. Counties, municipalities, towns, and townships typically oversee a number of separate facilities and operations. EMS can be used as a framework to help these operations improve their environmental performance and make greater use of pollution prevention approaches.

• Improvements in overall environmental performance and compliance
• Provide a framework for using pollution prevention practices to meet EMS objectives
• Increased efficiency and potential cost savings when managing environmental obligations
• Promote predictability and consistency in managing environmental obligations
• More effective targeting of scarce environmental management resources
• Enhance public posture with outside stakeholders

EPA believes EMS, if implemented properly, could serve as a valuable tool to help organizations improve their environmental performance, increase the use of pollution prevention, and improve compliance. However, this premise needs to be evaluated closely, working with a variety of organizations, including those in the public sector. EMS could, in the future, serve as the basis for providing regulatory flexibility to organizations that successfully implement them.