What is ISO14001:2004?

The ISO 14000 Series gives the requirements for an environmental management system and is one of more than 15,000 voluntary International Standards published by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO).It is primarily concerned with "environmental management". For the ISO, this means what the organization does to minimize harmful effects on the environment of its activities. It is not a product standard and does not give requirements for specific products or services; rather, it provides a set of generic requirements for what the organisation must do to manage the processes influencing the impact of the organisation's activities on the environment. Implementation involves making production procedures explicit (‘say what you do’), documenting them, ensuring they are followed and checking they are effective. The intention of ISO 14001:2004 is to provide a framework for an overall, strategic approach to an organisation's environmental policy, plans and actions.

The ISO 14000 family consists of standards relating to environmental management systems (EMS) and others which are tools to help the organisation realize its environmental policy, objectives and targets, and classify them by application:

•  at the organisational level (implementing EMS, conducting the environmental auditing and related investigations, and evaluating environmental performance).

• to products and services (using environmental declarations and claims, conducting life cycle assessment), addressing environmental aspects in product standards, and understanding terms and definitions).

ISO 14001:2004 ensures that organisations are aware of environmental aspects of their work in order to minimise negative impacts and improve environmental performance. ISO suggests that the Standard can provide significant tangible benefits, including:

•    Reduced raw material/resource use.

•    Reduced energy consumption.

•    Improved process efficiency.

•    Reduced waste generation and disposal costs.

•    Utilisation of recoverable resources.

Potential benefits

•  ISO 14001 covers a wide range of requirements that may go beyond compliance and legislation in seeking to improve the quality of the organisation’s environmental management activities.

• ISO 14001 is one of the most nationally and internationally known environmental standards that affirms the independent approval of a management system designed specifically to deliver high levels of customer satisfaction

• ISO 14001 can help organisations reduce waste, energy use and resources that can help to reduce costs.

• It has the potential to improve internal and external assurance and communication of management and environmental impacts.