What are the major elements of ISO 14001 Standard?

ISO 14001 standard specifies the elements of an EMS with advice on how to initiate, implement, improve and sustain the EMS. It is a system that aims at the integration of environmental management issues with the overall management function of an organisation. Like in the case of quality management, keywords for EMS are ‘Plan, Act, Check and Improve’ as shown in Figure 1.

The five major elements of ISO 14001 are Environmental Policy; Planning; Implementation & Operation, Checking & Action and Management Review. Implementation of ISO 14001 requires an organisation to specify its policy, identify the environmental aspects and impacts, set objectives and targets including commitment to comply with all appropriate legislation, define procedures to achieve the targets and objectives, implement the plan, check and take corrective measures as per set procedures. This standard also requires an organisation to review its system for time to time. ISO 14001 views the environmental policy as the driving force of the whole environment management system, and requires the commitment of the top management to comply with all relevant laws, pollution prevention and continual improvement. The policy is required to be developed carefully and according to the nature and scale of the operations, and is communicated to all employees and public.

Once the policy is in place, the planning process starts next. This includes identifying all actual or potential environmental aspects (those activities, products and services that interact with the environment) and their associated impacts. Of these impacts, the significant ones are to be identified. Then, the objective and targets are to be set, based on the commitments made in the policy including the legal requirements related to environment that the organisation must meet and the significant aspects/impacts. The management plan prepared subsequently details out the responsibilities, describe the means and time frame within which the objectives and targets are to be achieved.

To achieve the management plan, it will be required to have a proper structure and attach specific responsibilities to the employees across different levels. While assigning these responsibilities, the competence levels of the employees will be kept in view and therefore the training needs will also be identified to implement a management plan, internal communication of the purpose of the environmental management systems within the rank and file of the company will be necessary. As in any other management system, good documentation, operational aspects and their control is closely linked to the effectiveness of the system. These are covered in the element, "Implementation and Operation" that follows the plan exercise.

The system also requires that a mechanism for checking, correcting and improving the system be in place. The organisation is required to have procedures to measure, monitor and, if anything goes wrong, to deal with non-compliance. As in any documentation system, records generated during day-to-day operations must be identifiable, traceable, retrievable and protected from damage/loss. EMS audits are to be carried out both internally and by third-party registration agencies.

The final element of the EMS specification is the Management Review. The top management has to assess whether any changes are needed in the policy, objectives or other elements of the EMS reviews information from all sources. Based on the review, the continual improvement of the EMS and hence the environmental performance is to be ensured.