ISO 14001 - Environmental management
Improve environmental performance and meet policy commitments and objectives.
Certification of your environmental management system demonstrates increased awareness of sustainable development and gives environmentally credible companies a competitive edge in national and international markets.
ISO 14001 provides a clear management framework to reduce your environmental impacts and to ensure you meet legal requirements and build stakeholder trust. The standard provides your organisation with a systematic approach to planning, implementing and managing an environmental management system.
What is ISO 14001
ISO 14001 is the most recognized international standard for environmental management systems. It is used worldwide. The nature of ISO 14001 allows it to be applied to the complete range of business sectors, scopes, and activities. It provides a framework through which an organisation can deliver environmental performance improvement in line with its environmental policy commitments.
ISO 14001 specifies requirements for an organisation to proactively identify and understand the environmental aspects of its activities, products and services and associated environmental impacts.
- It assists organisations to establish environmental policy and objectives and understand how significant aspects can be managed, implement necessary controls and set clear objectives to improve environmental performance.
- It allows an organization to manage its obligation to comply with applicable legal and requirements and other stakeholder obligations, and to regularly check the compliance status. This permits a continual improvement of the management system to enhance its environmental performance.
ISO 14001 is designed to be compatible and harmonized with other recognized management system standards, including ISO 9001. It is therefore ideal for integration into existing management systems and processes.
Benefits of becoming certified
The potential benefits of ISO 14001 are numerous, but the most significant and tangible ones are that the standard enables your organisation to:
- Build and operate an environmental management system within a well-defined and clear framework, which at the same time is flexible to your own business needs and expectations.
- Provide a tool for environmental performance improvement and the means to effectively monitor and measure environmental performance.
- Facilitate reductions in pollution, waste generation and unintended discharges to the environment. This includes impacts related to the product, taking into consideration a life cycle perspective.
- Improve your resource management, including use of energy, which also may imply a reduction in the cost of running your business.
- Better meet environmental legal compliance and corporate requirements.
