Environmental Management System -ISO 14001:2015 in short, we can also say it is EMS (Environmental Management System)
Before proceeding to the subject matter ISO 14001 Certification -Environmental Management EMS
Let’s understand the concept of Environment, Environmental Management, and Environmental Management Systems.
What is Environment?
The environment is the surroundings in which we live, society, city, state, country, people, and business including Air, water, land flora, fauna, natural resources, ecosystem, climate, biodiversity, and their interrelationships. As we know that good Environment keeps good Health conditions and also affects the many factors of the Environment.
What Is Environmental Management?
Environmental Management is a degree of management of Environmental conditions at a point in time to reduce the impact of environmental aspects on the Environment.
Environmental Management System is the management of the environment in a systematic manner as per laid down policy, and procedure with the objective to prevent pollution by effective management of the impact of Environmental aspects, full fill compliance obligations (applicable legal and other requirements related to Environment) and address the Risk & Opportunity.
Now we have understood the Environment, Environmental Management, and Environmental Management Systems.
Now Let’s Understand- What is ISO 14001 Certification – Environmental Management System
Environmental Management System – ISO 14001:2015 Standards is an EMS Standards published by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in the year 2015. This EMS standard has specific requirements related to Environmental Management. As per Environmental Management System Standard, the requirement of ISO 14001 is provided in Clause #1 to Clause # 10. where the requirement for the implementation of Environmental Management ISO 14001 is given in Clause 4 to Clause 10.
The Key Environmental Management System requirements to be focused on while taking Environmental Management System Implementation for ISO 14001 Certification
Identification of Environmental Aspects and Analysis of Its Impact on the Environment
Environmental Aspects is the activities /Products/process/services of the organization which interacts with the environment and creates pollution. For Example – Running Plans & Machinery in the organization – May create Noise Pollution – This Noise Pollution is Environmental Aspect. In the Same Example case – The use of Electricity for Running the Plant & Machineries – Where Consumption of Electricity – could be an Environmental Aspect – Because it is a depletion of Natural resources.
So, by taking the above Example – while identification of Environmental Aspects the organization looks into the entire activities /Products/process/services to find the possible environmental Aspects.
After Finding the Environmental Aspects – Do the Impact Analysis on the Environment. There may be a possibility Some of the Environmental Aspects’ impact is Significant to the Environment and some may be non-Significant.
So, address the Significant Environmental Aspects by taking necessary action to reduce its impact on the environment.
Compliance Obligations
The Compliance obligations are nothing but Legal and other requirements related to Environmental Management – Which may be requirements of the Local Govt, Regulatory Body, Client’s requirement, and Interested Party requirements.
In this requirement, the organization implementing Environmental Management System -EMS for ISO 14001 Certification.
The organization does the Following Activities
- Identify the applicable legal and other requirements
- Prepare the Legal Register
- Maintain Compliance with Legal and other requirements.
- Timely Review of the legal and other requirements for amendment & changes – If any amendments in requirements – Keep updating the legal register & compliances.
These are the key requirements to be taken into consideration while implementing the Environmental Management System EMS for ISO 14001 Certification.
Please note that there are many other requirements that we will cover in our next blog – which are equally important for ISO 14001 Certification.
For More Information About How to get ISO 14001 Certification, kindly watch the video provided below.