• March 22, 2014

ISO 14001:2015 Update – Where Are We?

ISO 14001:2004 is being revised. The International Organization for Standardization working group responsible for revising the text has already met and has produced a draft which is now being circulated for comment to its member bodies.

Since the inception of ISO 14001, more than 300,000 organizations worldwide have implemented the standard, the market-leading certification-system for environmental-management systems.  Its’ popularity is the result of the continued efforts of the committee to revise, maintain, and update the standard, keeping it current relevant ecological, political and social developments.

As the previous revision dates back several years, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has  announced the next version for 2015 and recently provided an insight into the changes by publishing a so-called “Committee Draft“.

The latest draft of the revised ISO 14001:2015 is being circulated to ISO’s members for comment and the working group undertaking the revision met at the end of February to address the responses to this consultation. The output from that meeting will be a “Draft International Standard”, which will undergo a full public consultation in Q2 next year, with the resulting revised published in mid-2015.

ISO 14001:2015 will have a new structure and “common text”, following new ISO guidelines for all management systems standards. Furthermore, it will address the recommendations from the ISO “Future Challenges” study for the adoption of various new approaches and methods in the field of EMS.

The Future Challenges study recommended that consideration be given in the revision of ISO 14001 to the content of ISO 26000 – Guidance on Social Responsibility, which considers the environment as the “planet” element of the “People, Planet and Profit” model. Future Challenges suggests that 14001 should address the environmental principles in ISO 26000 and also consider aligning its language.

The four environmental themes considered in ISO 26000 are:

1. Prevention of pollution (waste and emissions);
2. Sustainable resource use (materials, energy and water consumption);
3. Climate change and mitigation (GHG);
4. Protection of the environment and restoration of natural habitats (ecosystems, biodiversity, land and natural resources, urban and rural development).

More to come as Quality Resource Center has identified the major changes, and we will be publishing another in the series of soon to help you understand the key aspects of this new revision.

• March 22, 2014
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• ISO 14001