ISO 14001:2015

Determine the internal and external issues relevant to the organisation's purpose that affect the intended outcomes of the environmental management system, including the environmental conditions capable of affecting or being affected by the organisation.

Determine the interested parties relevant to the environmental management system, their relevant needs and expectations, and which of those become compliance obligations.

Define and document the boundaries and applicability of the environmental management system, considering context, compliance obligations, organisational units, activities, products, services, and authority to exercise control.

Establish, implement, maintain, and continually improve the environmental management system, including the processes needed and their interactions, to achieve its intended outcomes and enhance environmental performance.

Top management must demonstrate leadership and commitment by taking accountability for the system's effectiveness, ensuring policy and objectives, integrating requirements into business processes, providing resources, and promoting improvement.

Top management must establish an environmental policy appropriate to the organisation that commits to protecting the environment, fulfilling compliance obligations, and continual improvement, and that is documented, communicated, and available.

Assign and communicate responsibilities and authorities for relevant roles, including ensuring the system conforms to the standard and reporting on its performance to top management.

Establish processes to determine the risks and opportunities related to environmental aspects, compliance obligations, and other issues that need to be addressed to assure intended outcomes, prevent undesired effects, and achieve continual improvement.

Determine the environmental aspects of the organisation's activities, products, and services that it can control or influence, and their associated impacts, and identify those that are significant using established criteria; keep documented information.

Determine and have access to the compliance obligations related to environmental aspects, decide how they apply to the organisation, and take them into account when establishing and maintaining the system; keep documented information.

Plan actions to address significant environmental aspects, compliance obligations, and risks and opportunities, and how to integrate and evaluate those actions within the system's processes.

Establish environmental objectives at relevant functions and levels, consistent with the policy, measurable where practicable, monitored, communicated, and updated as appropriate; keep documented information.

When planning how to achieve environmental objectives, determine what will be done, the resources required, who is responsible, when it will be completed, and how results will be evaluated including relevant indicators.

Determine and provide the resources needed to establish, implement, maintain, and continually improve the environmental management system.

Determine the competence needed for people whose work affects environmental performance and the ability to meet compliance obligations, ensure competence, take action to acquire it, and retain evidence.

Ensure people doing work under the organisation's control are aware of the environmental policy, significant aspects and impacts relevant to their work, their contribution to the system, and the implications of not conforming.

Establish processes for the internal and external communications relevant to the system, determining what, when, with whom, and how to communicate, taking account of compliance obligations and ensuring information is consistent and reliable.

Communicate relevant environmental management system information internally among the various levels and functions, including changes, and enable persons to contribute to continual improvement.

Communicate information relevant to the environmental management system externally as established by the organisation's communication processes and as required by its compliance obligations.

The environmental management system must include the documented information required by the standard plus whatever the organisation determines is necessary for its effectiveness.

When creating or updating documented information, ensure appropriate identification and description, format and media, and review and approval for suitability and adequacy.

Control documented information so it is available and suitable where needed and adequately protected, addressing distribution, access, storage, version control, retention, disposal, and documents of external origin.

Establish, implement, control, and maintain the processes needed to meet system requirements and the planned actions, setting operating criteria, controlling changes, and controlling outsourced processes consistent with a life-cycle perspective.

Establish, implement, and maintain processes to prepare for and respond to potential environmental emergencies, including preventing or mitigating impacts, testing planned responses, and providing relevant information and training to interested parties.

Determine what needs monitoring and measuring, the methods, criteria, and timing, to evaluate environmental performance and the effectiveness of the system, ensure calibrated equipment where relevant, and retain the evidence.

Establish, implement, and maintain processes to evaluate fulfilment of compliance obligations, determine frequency, take action as needed, maintain knowledge of compliance status, and retain documented information.

Conduct internal audits at planned intervals to confirm the environmental management system conforms to the organisation's own requirements and the standard and is effectively implemented and maintained.

Establish, implement, and maintain an audit programme defining frequency, methods, responsibilities, and reporting, considering the importance of processes and prior results, and select objective auditors; retain evidence of the programme and results.

Top management must review the environmental management system at planned intervals for continuing suitability, adequacy, and effectiveness, considering defined inputs and producing decisions on improvement, changes, and resources; retain documented information.

Determine opportunities for improvement and implement necessary actions to achieve the intended outcomes of the environmental management system.

When a nonconformity occurs, react to it, evaluate the need to eliminate its causes so it does not recur, implement and review corrective action, make changes to the system if needed, and retain evidence of the nonconformity and actions.

Continually improve the suitability, adequacy, and effectiveness of the environmental management system to enhance environmental performance.