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ISO 14000 Series – The Basic Principles
ISO 14000 was approved by European Commission through the
recommendation of CEN (Commite de Normalization) which is European Union's
Standardization Body. ISO 4001 is derived from ISO 9000 but it is broader in
scope than quality standards because environmental issues are larger issues
affecting the nations and the worlds resources and living conditions. Further,
it requires organizations to be concerned with everything from raw materials to
end product as it reaches the consumer and its final disposal – a cradle to
grave approach. ISO 14001 is not a guarantee of excellence in environmental
performance but it is an assurance that organization has an EMS that manages its
environmental issues. An organization may like to upgrade from ISO 14001 to EMAS
which is open to public. ISO 14000 enables an organization's EMS to:
(i)
formulate and define policy and objectives in this regard.
(ii)
to formulate a plan to implement the policy and objectives.
(iii)
to develop the capabilities and support to achieve the
implementation of policy objectives.
(iv)
to monitor and evaluate environmental performance.
(v)
to review the EMS for continued improvement.
This standard is tailored for an organization of any size. It
is applicable to any organization that would like to:
-
maintain and implement EMS.
- be sure
that it conforms to stated environmental policy.
- obtain
certification/registration of EMS.
-
demonstrate conformance to EMS to others.
As mentioned above first component of ISO 14001 is
Environmental Policy. An sound environmental policy reflects the commitment of
management in matters relating to environmental issues. The Policy has to be
written as a document to be available to the concerned employees as well as to
the external parties.
The policy is formulated by the top management who are
signatories of the policy document. Environmental Policy should:
1.
be realistic taking into consideration the constraints and
resources of the company as well the extent of impacts that the organization has
on the environment. While discussing impacts the document should embody
life-cycle analysis, resource conservation, waste reduction and product design.
In fact, the concept of sustainable development should be the part of the
document. Rhetorics would not serve any purpose in the process of documenting
the policy.
2.
be documented and available to all the employees and the
external parties – stakeholders and public.
3.
be clear about commitment for continued improvement of EMS.
4.
be in conformity with the laws and rules and regulations. In
other words it must make a statement in regard to compliance.
5.
lay down a framework of environmental objectives.
The objectives take into consideration the vision, mission
and core values of the organization. The objectives are in fact indicators of
performance. The indicators then become measurable. Examples of indicators are
quantity of (i) raw material used, (ii) emissions, (iii) other wastes, (iv)
energy, (v) recycling of wastes.
The EMS Auditor would be taking into consideration the
objectives and all the above listed requirements while conducting the audit.
Planning of EMS for audit requires that the system should be
in the form of written plan or manual giving details of work and procedures.
When the work involves handling of hazardous materials or any other procedure
involving safety measures, it has to be carefully written as a plan document.
Planning for EMS is an important function of an organization in the sense that
it takes into consideration a proper schedule, resources, targets, successes as
well as likely failures, contingencies and alternatives to mitigate the crisis
if it occurs. The plan includes environmental aspects and impact, though there
may be an overlap in policy and planning in this regard.
Planning takes into consideration the processes, resources,
responsibilities, skills authority and coordination.
The next element of EMS specifications, ISO 14001 is it
implementation. An organization should have support and capabilities for
achieving objectives and targets set out in policy and plan. The process of
implementation implies management skills. Implementation for ISO 14001 means:
-
Management of Human, Financial and Natural resources.
-
Motivation for action.
-
Responsibilities.
-
Documentation.
-
Communication within the organization.
-
Operational control.
-
Preparedness for emergency.
- Records
and management of information.
Successful implementation of EMS would need commitment of all
the employees. EMS, in fact encompasses many other areas of management;
particularly organizational change is one area that is key to successful
implementation of EMS. It is important that the traditional management culture
is changed to environmental-organization culture which means discarding old
practices and beliefs and learning new ones. Education and training provide the
members of organization with requisite environmental skills and knowledge.
Environmental awareness of the staff in general and environmental training for
those involved in EMS brings benefits to the organization and help in
implementation of the EMS. Of course for this to happen, commitment has to begin
at the highest level of management. The top management has also to ensure that
sufficient resources are provided for the implementation of EMS.
EMS demands a mechanism for measuring performance and
evaluation. After monitoring and evaluation, an organization could then review
its actions for improvements. Therefore a process has to be evolved that involves testing, and
verification. Such a process must be an ongoing process to identify
environmental performance indicators that are verifiable. Also for regular
monitoring, the companies must establish a system and procedure for determining
compliance and conformance with law and rules and regulations. For conformance
to all the above regulations a periodic audit of EMS should be conducted either
by internal or external auditors who are trained and qualified for the job.
An organization which has initiated the process of
formulating Policy, Planning, Implementation and Monitoring of EMS has to adopt
the last step namely, the Review of the system. At Review stage, the
organization has to think in terms of continual improvements of environmental
performance. Review is very important because it undertakes an in-depth analysis
of all the issues of environmental concern. Reviews must go beyond the stage of
compliance. It must pay full attention to implementation of objectives set out
by the organization. If the objectives have not been achieved or not achievable,
these must be changed or modified. Issues to be discussed in the process of
review are :
(i)
Suitability of environmental policy;
(ii)
Recommendations of audit report;
(iii)
New regulations;
(iv)
Interest of stakeholders;
(v)
Public awareness and pressures.
The review findings must be documented especially its
recommendations in regard to safety measures, preventive measures and impacts on
public health and living conditions. Accidents and incidents may occur suddenly.
They result from failures of equipment, human error or flaws in EMS itself.
These have to be identified and compliances be restored. Human error is most
significant because it is something that can be corrected/minimized on the basis
of deep analysis as to why a particular person makes a particular mistake.
Anyway, it is the management which is blamed if the machine fails or processes
become haphazard or when people make mistake. The responsible management reviews
the EMS in the light of what is stated in the last sentence.
