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Environmental Management

ISO 14001:2015

22 April 2014
Environmental Management

What is ISO 14001:2015?

Superseding ISO 14001 : 2004, ISO 14001 :2015 is an internationally recognised standard that lays out requirements to which an organisation must adhere, to demonstrate that it’s business functions are managed within a framework committed to continually reducing it’s impacts on the environment. The framework is commonly referred to as an environmental management system. As ISO 14001:2015 is an internationally recognised standard, most environmental management systems are based on its requirements.

The standard focuses on how your organisation;

  • Identifies and manages environmental specific stakeholder requirements,
  • Controls important documentation and records,
  • Continually identifies, manages and reduces it’s significant environmental risks & impacts,
  • Complies with environmental legal obligations,
  • Reviews internal processes and environmental incidents,

Organisations that we have helped comply with this standard;

New Paradigm Consulting specialises in streamlining management systems and here is a tip for you to reduce some of the administration associated with meeting the requirements of ISO 14001 : 2015.

Many organisations are under the impression that if they identify 20 individual environmental impacts during a review, then all 20 must be addressed immediately or they will fail an audit.

Most organisations do not have the financial and personnel resources to appoint a full time member of staff to focus on improving the environmental performance of the organisation. With that in mind, creating 20 individual improvement plans to address each of the 20 impacts, is likely to be an unrealistic target and will most likely not be completed.

The standard simply requires that you identify your significant environmental impacts and show evidence that you are trying to improve your environmental performance. Consider identifying the top 5 detrimental impacts and focus on reducing their impact on the environment.

5 environmental objectives, accompanied by 5 improvement plans and evidence of improvement will be better received by your auditor than 20 improvement plans that were not completed. Not to mention you are likely to get more value from the process and actually improve your company’s environmental performance. In addition, that leaves another 15 areas that could be improved next year!

Please contact New Paradigm Consulting if this situation is familiar to you and we can discuss other opportunities for streamlining your environmental management system with the emphasis on reducing the effort required to manage it.

Please contact us if you wish to implement a management system compliant with ISO 14001:2015 within your organisation.

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Standards

Is your company interested in gaining certification to any of the following standards?

We can discuss the implementation process, timescales and the availability of any funding for the project

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