Environmental management is becoming more important year by year and since the 2015 version was issued it focussed the minds of many company directors on the need to show they were committed to preventing pollution and protecting our fragile planet.
The main requirement of the Standard is to control and/or mitigate the effects of significant aspects.
A significant aspect is one where the impact on the environment is considered sufficiently serious.
Many low risk companies probably have only one or two significant aspects and some do not have any at all. This makes it difficult for an external assessor to audit and award a certificate.
The Standard shows four routes to demonstrate conformity:
- Making a self-determination and self- declaration, or
- Seeking confirmation of its conformance by parties having an interest in the organisation, such as customers, or
- Seeking confirmation of its self-declaration by a party external to the organisation, or
- Seeking certification/registration of its environmental management system by an external organisation.
The route for high risk organisations is through the last option where an assessment is made by a UKAS accredited certification body.
Low and medium risk organisations can opt for option two or option three
Very low risk organisations can use option one.
We have carried out audits of low and medium organisations to confirm their self-determination and self-declarations status.
This information of conformity is contained in the ISO 14001:2015 Standard on page viii.
No comments:
Post a Comment