ISO 14001 Conformance
The Problems
The ISO 14000 environmental management standards exist to help organizations minimize how their operations negatively affect the environment and comply with applicable laws and regulations, providing assurance both to management and its employess that an organization is environmentally responsible. This assurance is becoming more and more important today as companies are forced to globally when developing their strategies.
The ISO 14001 standard contains the requirements for an environmental management system; however successfully implementing the standard brings challenges.
Do these problem sound familiar?
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I am not ready to pass an ISO 14001 audit.
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I can’t find the correct documentation.
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It is too difficult to develop the right document.
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My document does not meet the requirements of the ISO 14001 standard.
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My company spends too much money on compliance efforts.
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My company is not able to keep up with changes to documents.
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I need to bring my documentation up to the current version of the standard.
The Needs
Organizations seeking registration to ISO 14001 must be able to must successfully execute the following:
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Development of “audit ready” documentation – Solid documentation must include a policy manual, procedures and instructions covering the requirements in the standards with traceability to the stated requirements and objective evidence to support that the documentation is being followed.
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Enforce document control – Successful document control means that you can do the following things well: Revision control, document access, routing, approval and change impact analysis. Besides control, a document must be easy to find and retrieve by the intended user of its contents.