ISO 14001 : 2015

Environmental Management System

ISO 14001 sets out the requirements for an environmental management system. It gives an organisation a structured way to identify its environmental impacts, control them, meet its legal obligations and demonstrate improvement — with evidence rather than intent.

Why organisations pursue it

• Large buyers and government tenders increasingly require environmental certification from suppliers.
• Systematic control of waste, energy and emissions usually lowers operating cost.
• It provides defensible evidence of legal compliance to regulators and insurers.
• Sustainability claims backed by certification survive customer due diligence; claims alone do not.

What the standard requires

You identify the environmental aspects of your activities, determine which are significant, set objectives to control them, assign responsibility, monitor performance and review the results at management level. ISO 14001 does not set emission limits — it requires that you know your impacts, comply with the law that applies to you, and improve.

Running it alongside ISO 9001

ISO 14001:2015 shares the same high-level structure as ISO 9001:2015. Organisations holding both normally run a single integrated management system with one set of documents, one internal audit programme and one management review — which is materially less work than two parallel systems.

Not sure whether this is the standard your customer is actually asking for? Send us the requirement and we will tell you — even if the answer is a smaller job than you expected.