What is ISO 14000 Series?
In the globalization world, the environmental issues seem to be one of the most important topics. The pollution created in any manner such as air emission, effluent, land contamination, etc., have several impacts to people throughout the world. Upon this pressure, the International Organization for Standardization has developed the environmental management standards which is known as the “ISO 14000 Series”
ISO 14000 Series is the set of standards relating to environmental management system. The structure of the standards is as follows:
• Environmental Management Systems (EMS)
• Environmental Auditing and Related Environmental Investigations (EA)
• Environmental Labeling (EL)
• Environmental Performance Evaluation (EPE)
• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
• Terms and Definitions (T&D)
Generally, the standard used for certification is ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems - Specifications with Guidance for Use.
Briefly, the concepts of EMS are as follows :
1. Environmental policy
Initially, the organization’s top management should have commitment and define the policy on EMS which is used for the direction of implementing and improving its EMS.
2. Planning
In order to achieve environmental policy, at least, the organization should :
• identify the environmental aspects of its activities and specify those which have significant impacts on the environment.
• identify legal and other requirements to which the organization involved.
• establish objectives and targets of its activities having impacts to environment.
• establish environmental programmes for achieving its objectives and targets.
3. Implementation
In order to achieve environmental planning, at least, the organization should :
• define roles, responsibilities and authorities for facilitating EMS effectively.
• communicate to the staffs at each level for the importance of conformance to the environmental policy; provide appropriate training to personnel performing the tasks to gain their knowledge and competence.
• establish and control documentation relating to EMS.
• control operations and activities to meet the specified objectives and targets.
• identify potential accidents and emergency situations for preventing and mitigating the environmental impacts that may be associated with them and periodically test such procedures where practicable.
4. Checking and corrective action
To ensure that the organization is performing in accordance with the stated EMS programmes, at least, the organization should:
• monitor and measure its operations and activities against the organization’s plans.
• identify non-conformance and take action to mitigate any impact caused.
• record the on-going activities of the EMS.
• conduct periodic EMS audits.
5. Management review
The organization’s top management should review and continually improve its EMS, with the objective of improving its overall environmental performance.
Benefits of implementing an EMS
• Managing organization’s environment systematically.
• Obtaining better surroundings as well as providing protection to the potential emergency.
• Maintaining good public/community relation.
• Reducing environmental cost because of appropriate environmental management such as resources management, waste management, etc.
• Enhancing market share
