Used by nearly quarter of a million organizations across the globe, ISO 14001:2015 was developed from a framework set of environmental management standards produced at the first Earth Summit in Rio, Brazil in 1992. The standard has gone on to become widely admired and respected. It has undoubtedly helped to protect the environment where implemented.

If your company invests in ISO 14001:2015 accreditation, you are showing your staff, customers and the wider business community that you are not only committed to protecting the environment in the short term, but you are also willing to work within the guidelines of international environmental law in future.

As such, our clients report that adopting the ISO 14001:2015 standard has benefits to their business in terms of both enhancing their financial situation by reducing waste and energy costs, and helping them to streamline their daily operations where environmental issues are concerned. On every level, customers and staff respond very favourably to ISO 14001:2015 certification.

Based on the “Plan, Do, Check, Act” management methodology, the ISO 14001:2015 standard is made up of the following elements:

• Plan: establish the objectives and processes required
• Do: implement the processes
• Check: measure and monitor the processes and report the results
• Act: take action to improve performance based on these results

The process above can be further broken down into stages, which cover these broad areas:

Environmental policy

• Environmental planning
• Implementation and operation
• Checking and corrective action
• Management review