ISO 14001 Certification: Making Businesses Environmentally Responsible

There is no denying that businesses have enormous effects through their activities, production and distribution on the environment—including humans and other living organisms. It is because of this, most responsible businesses have systematic monitoring of their environmental impacts in place. However, it is often confined to on-site monitoring. Environmental impacts are widespread. Businesses can affect their surroundings even through the consumption of their products or services or after the service life of products (i.e. while disposing them). ISO 14001 certification henceforth came as a comprehensive and regulatory tool for environmental impacts management by organizations, of all sizes and at all levels. Being an international standard, ISO 14001 is aimed at helping organizations in establishing a strategic management system, known as environmental management system (EMS). A well-framed EMS orients an organization towards responsible resource use, ensures environmental risks management and minimizes immediate impacts on the environment through appropriate measures.

Here is how ISO 14001 environmental certification is assisting businesses today to make their operations ecologically more efficient and simultaneously save many costs.

Requires the Adoption of Concrete Management System

To achieve ISO 14001 environmental management standard, every business needs to implement a specific EMS that promotes best practices for environmental impact control. The EMS must be developed to meet the obligatory requirements of the standard. Also, the scope of EMS should be determined after evaluating the impacts of various processes, activities and supplies of the organizations. In short, EMS should be formed by considering the organizational context regarding environmental impacts and various agents/parties who are affected by them, directly and indirectly. Interested parties generally refer to customers, people residing in proximity or municipalities, employees, investors, suppliers and partners. Thus this certification obligates the implementation of comprehensive and concrete EMS that will control all environmental impacts and all associated aspects across the organization as well as the entire ‘life-cycle’ of its products.

Systematic Identification of Impacts or Risks

With EMS, organizations will be able to have a definite framework for identifying their environmental impacts and risks. In fact, identification of impacts is a step-by-step process compared to the ambiguous ways used by organizations before for the same task. Now, with an EMS, they need to follow certain steps to check for impacts, measure their risks or costs, and plan for preventive/corrective actions. Specifically, those steps involve:

• Selecting areas, activities, services, procurement processes, production methods and distribution procedures with potential impacts
• Determination of potential impacts which can be directly or easily controlled, and which need special rules or practices of control
• Keeping records of existing impacts along with remedial measures taken and also keeping records of probable impacts with mitigation action plans
• Continuous assessment of environmental performance, effectiveness of controls and satisfaction among the interested parties with engagement of environment inspection personnel.

Results in Continuous Improvement

Environmental performance of an organization implies improvement in sustainability and reduction of impacts collectively. With ISO 14001 implementation, an organization will be able to uncover all its faults or shortcomings in its existing informal environmental management system and form a concrete, regulatory framework. A well-structured and administrative management system always forms the basis of continuous improvement, resulting in minimization of environmental risks and controlled use of resources. There is a need for specifying certain indicators which will help in measuring environmental performance of an organization. The EMS will help to figure out progress in performance by assessing those indicators. Successively, the organization can decide further practices if measurable targets are not achieved.

An active EMS framework also leaves scope for organizations to implement new practices or policies whenever possible to maintain compliance with local environmental regulations so that results in overall improvement and strengthening of their EMS.

Obtaining ISO 14001 certification is the most effective strategy for businesses of all types that seek to eliminate their environmental impacts. Through implementation of an EMS, it helps to reduce uses of resources and costs, regulate risks and demonstrate their environmental compliance to stakeholders (or interested parties). These above points show how ISO 14001 helps businesses to have effective and responsive environmental protection. Having adequate environmental impact management with a global standard also acts as a key factor of competitiveness for them.