The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is carried out through ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work. ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (I EC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization.
ISO 1400 1 is a group of standards covering the following areas : Environmental Management Systems (14001,14002, 14004) , Environmental Auditing (14010, 14011, 14012) , Evaluation of Environmental Performance (14031) , Environmental Labeling (14020, 14021, 14022, 14023, 14024, 14025) Life-Cycle Assessment (14040, 14041,14042, 14043)
ISO 14001 is the only standard intended for registration by third parties. All the others are for guidance. ISO 14001 is a management standard , it is not a performance or product standard. The underlying purpose of ISO 14001 is that companies will improve their environmental performance by implementing ISO 14001, but there are no standards for performance or the level of improvement. It is a process for managing company activities that impact the environment.
It is comprehensive: all members of the organization participate in environmental protection, the EMS considers all stakeholders, and there are processes to identify all environmental impacts.
It is proactive: it focuses on forward thinking and action instead of reacting to command and control policies.
It is a systems approach: it stresses improving environmental protection by using a single environmental management system across all functions of the organization.
The Environmental Management System contains the following elements :
- An environmental policy supported by top management .
- Identification of environmental aspects and significant impacts.
- Identification of legal and other requirements.
- Environmental goals, objectives, and targets that support the policy.
- An environmental management program.
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Definition of roles, responsibilities, and authorities.
- Training and awareness procedures.
- Process for communication of the EMS to all interested parties.
- Document and operational control procedures.
- Procedures for emergency response.
- Procedures for monitoring and measuring operations that can have a significant impact on the environment.
- Procedures to correct nonconformance.
- Record management procedures.
- A program for auditing and corrective action.
- Procedures for management review.
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