Environmental Management : the ISO 14001-2015 standard

The implementation of an environmental management system (EMS) is becoming a necessity for companies of all kinds, firstly to improve their overall performance and, secondly, to meet the demands of external parties concerned by their environmental management.

ISO 14001 "Environmental management systems. Specifications and guidelines for use", in its 2015 revised version, takes up the fundamental elements of the previous version (published in 2004), adding to them on certain points, but above all making it fully compatible with other management system standards, in particular ISO 9001-2015 concerning quality management. This is made possible by the creation of a structure common to all management standards, and by identical definitions for terms common to other management system standards.

The purpose of this article is to describe the contents of ISO 14001, version 2015, after recalling the environmental motivations for the company and the specificities of the environmental dimension. It also includes a description of the changes made to the previous version.

The model proposed by this standard offers a logical approach based on a recognized structure (Deming loop) which has proved its worth, particularly for the quality management system. Compliance with ISO 14001 enables third-party certification.

Note: the ISO 14001-2015 standard (like the 2004 version) is applicable to any type of organization; however, this article is specifically designed to help companies.