Most of these problems
have a global impact and have to be addressed worldwide.
A set of international
standards brings a worldwide focus to the environment, encouraging
a cleaner, safer, healthier world for us all. The existence
of standards allows organisations to focus on environmental
efforts against internationally accepted criteria.
What is the ISO 14000
After the rapid acceptance
of the ISO 9000 standards and the development of environment
standards in different countries, the ISO felt the need
to develop an international environmental management standard.
They formed the Strategic Advisory Group on the Environment
(SAGE) in 1991, to consider whether such standards could
serve to:
Different countries
and groups are already setting environmental standards individually.
The ISO 14000 should make it possible to set a common standard
acceptable internationally.
The ISO 14000 is meant
to apply to organisations from all parts of the world with
different cultures and social backgrounds. The implementation
of the ISO 14000 standard is voluntary, in that it is left
to the organisation to embrace and adhere to the ISO standard
of legislation and regulations. However, organisations might
be interested implementing ISO 14000 for different reasons
like improving process efficiency, customer requirements,
and pressure from local environmental groups or concern
for the environment.
The ISO 14000 can be
applied to any area of an organisation like production,
services, operations, facilities, and transportation.
The ISO 14000 series
of standards is comprised of many guideline standards. Nevertheless,
it has only one compliance standard -- ISO 14001 Environmental
Management Systems. The list of ISO 14000 series of standard
is given below.
Standard Title /
Description
14000 Guide to Environmental Management Principles, Systems
and Supporting Techniques
14001 Environmental Management Systems - Specification with
Guidance for Use
14010 Guidelines for Environmental Auditing - General Principles
of Environmental Auditing
14011 Guidelines for Environmental Auditing - Audit Procedures-Part
1: Auditing of Environmental Management Systems
14012 Guidelines for Environmental Auditing - Qualification
Criteria for Environmental Auditors
14013/15 Guidelines for Environmental Auditing - Audit Programmes,
Reviews & Assessments
14020/23 Environmental Labelling
14024 Environmental Labelling - Practitioner Programmes
- Guiding Principles, Practices and Certification Procedures
of Multiple Criteria Programmes
14031/32 Guidelines on Environmental Performance Evaluation
14040/43 Life Cycle Assessment General Principles and Practices
14050 Glossary
14060 Guide for the Inclusion of Environmental Aspects in
Product Standards
How to implement
the ISO 14001
The ISO 14001 requires
an organisation to have an environmental policy fully supported
by the top management. The environmental policy provides
the initial direction and guidance for the organisation.
The statement should be simple to be understood by all,
also well publicised both to the staff and to the public.
The organisation should
then make a preliminary review of the organisation's internal
process and output at the site. It should involve all issues
related to the environment. This may include environmental
issues due to past activities e.g. contamination of land
or future planned or unplanned activities that can have
an environmental impact It will also be useful for the organisation
to consider the legislation and the areas where the organisation
is not complying with its requirement.
Then the organisation
can declare its primary environmental objective that will
be most effective in operation. The organisation should
set specific goals and targets along the way for it to meet
the objective. The Environmental Management System should
give detailed procedures, work instructions and controls
to ensure the achievement of the targets.
The Environment Management
System needs to be audited periodically and comprehensively
to ensure that the legislations and regulations are being
adhered to and make sure that the goals set are being achieved.
In addition there should also be a management audit to check
if the objectives set are suitable to the organisation and
effective in operation periodically.
The ISO 14000 Environment
Management System should be integrated with the other activities
of the organisation. An organisation that has integrated
the Environment Management System to the other business
operations is on the way to efficiency, compliance and continuous
improvement and will reap the benefits accompanying it.
