FAQ ISO 14001

The environmental management system is made up of interrelated components derived from the so-called Deming cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle). In principle, none of these components can be omitted, because if they are, the Deming cycle no longer works. An organization may adapt the implementation of each component to its own circumstances. In a smaller organization, the environmental management system will generally be set up more simply than in a large organization. As an illustration, SCCM has developed an example of an environmental management system (Dutch) for a small transport company.

The EMAS Regulation imposes a number of additional requirements on an environmental management system. The requirements in ISO 14001 correspond to the requirements set out in the EMAS Regulation for an environmental management system. It is common for companies to first obtain ISO 14001 certification and use this as the basis for EMAS participation. For EMAS participation, a company must, in addition to implementing an environmental management system, also prepare and have assessed a public environmental statement. Once the environmental management system has been implemented, preparing the environmental statement will be relatively straightforward. In the Netherlands, only a limited number of organizations are certified for EMAS. EMAS is especially popular in countries such as Germany and France.

The duration of a certification audit is calculated by the certification body based on a wide range of factors. The environmental impact of the organization’s activities, the size of the organization, whether shift work is carried out, and whether the management system is integrated with quality and/or occupational health and safety are some of the main factors influencing the duration.

Based on an intake interview, certification bodies provide an indication of the time and costs involved in the preliminary assessment, the certification audit, and the periodic surveillance audits. Certification bodies are required to use the international IAF guideline for audit time determination (IAF MD5).

The certification bodies affiliated with SCCM are all accredited by the Raad voor Accreditatie (RvA) and/or by a foreign accreditation body that is a member of the IAF (International Accreditation Forum). An accreditation is linked to specific sectors, known as the “scope” of the accreditation. The scope depends on the certification body’s knowledge and experience in the various sectors. Therefore, certification bodies are not accredited for the same number of sectors. It is important to assess whether the certification body is accredited for your sector. On the RvA website, you can find the Dutch accreditations per certification body.

An important criterion when choosing a certification body is whether it can add value and encourage the organization to continuously improve its environmental management system. The qualities of the auditors, including their technical expertise, familiarity with the organization’s activities, and their way of working, play an important role. It is common to speak with several certification bodies when making a choice, in order to become familiar with their approach.

The entire organization or certain organizational units can be certified. If an organizational unit has its own management that is responsible for all relevant environmental matters and has the ability to implement its own environmental policy, it can be certified separately. This often applies, for example, to a business unit or operating company. In some organizations, the policy is to certify each unit separately, while other organizations prefer to certify the organization as a whole. It is not possible to exclude a specific activity, for example one with many environmental aspects. Every ISO 14001 certificate states the “scope” or field of application of the certificate. This describes which activities or parts of the organization the certificate applies to.

The standard does not require you to be in contact with all your stakeholders in order to identify their wishes and needs. However, it must be plausible that the identified wishes and needs are appropriate for the relevant stakeholders. For example, with customers/clients, you may already know enough about their wishes and needs through assignments or requests for quotations, so direct contact may not be necessary. For other stakeholders, it may be necessary to identify their wishes and needs directly. Experience shows that this can also be an opportunity to engage with stakeholders in a different way. During an audit, the auditor will ask for the basis and plausibility of the analysis.

It is not mandatory to inform your external environment about obtaining or having an environmental management system or certificate. However, the organization must implement a process for internal and external communication that specifies with whom communication takes place and about what. The context analysis may show that certain parties value the ISO 14001 certificate and/or want to be informed about specific topics. This may be a reason to decide to make the ISO 14001 certificate known.

In a context analysis, the aim is to gain insight into the important issues or developments, both inside and outside the organization, that are or may be relevant to achieving the intended outcome of the environmental management system. Issues or developments become relevant when they are associated with environmental and/or organizational risks or opportunities in the short or long term. See our information sheet on Context Analysis (Dutch).

To comply with the ISO 14001 standard, the environmental aspects of activities, products, or services that can have significant impacts on the environment, and that the organization can control and is expected to be able to influence from a life-cycle perspective, must be identified. This requirement means that the organization must be viewed broadly. It is not sufficient, for example, to only inventory the environmental aspects within the facilities function. The organization must also consider to what extent the services it provides may have an environmental impact. For instance, a school must examine to what extent its educational offering leads to environmental effects. Environmental aspects may therefore also be indirect in nature, for example because they occur at a supplier. An organization must be able to demonstrate that it has made a complete inventory and that it has systematically determined which environmental aspects are significant.

The ISO 14001 standard does not require an assessment of all subcontractors and suppliers. It does require an inventory of the environmental aspects of activities, products, and services that can be controlled and where influence can reasonably be expected, based on a life-cycle perspective (clause 6.1.2). Environmental aspects of outsourced activities must also be controlled and reduced where possible (clause 8.1).

Because the significant environmental aspects in 6.1.2 are determined from a life-cycle perspective, this also includes environmental aspects relevant to organizations to which work is outsourced and/or from which raw materials, products, or services are purchased. A control measure for these aspects (required under clause 8.1) may be to set performance requirements regarding the environmental aspects and/or the way compliance and reporting are secured in contractual terms.

An organization should therefore have insight into whether subcontractors and suppliers have environmental aspects that it can influence. This does not mean that every subcontractor and supplier has to be assessed. It should, however, be clear that the organization has considered whether environmental aspects exist at subcontractors and/or suppliers. If so, a next step may be to carry out more specific assessments for certain groups of subcontractors and/or suppliers and to set requirements for their environmental aspects. The SCCM ISO 14001 certification scheme provides an explanation of this part of the standard.

ISO 14001 requires that the requirements applicable to the organization’s processes, products, and services are identified. It is not sufficient to state, for example, that the Environmental and Planning Act applies; you must specify which articles apply. See our information sheet on Compliance with Laws and Regulations with an Environmental Management System (Dutch). To keep this overview up to date, changes in laws and regulations must be tracked. The standard does not specify a frequency, but it is reasonable to do this at least once a year.

There are various ways to stay informed about changes. For example, you can subscribe to the Staatscourant, subscribe to the newsletter of the Information Point for the Environment (IPLO), or use regular updates through a subscription to a legal database. Some trade associations track legal changes for their members, some companies are informed by a consultant, or by newsletters sometimes issued by competent authorities. SCCM tracks the most important legal and regulatory changes twice a year for members of my.sccm. Depending on the organization, one or more of these methods may be chosen.

A relocation generally has major consequences for the organization. For example, companies that require permits will also need a new permit. The certification body will need to determine whether the environmental management system is suited to the circumstances at the new location and whether the system is functioning properly at that new location. The address on the certificate must also be updated, which means a new certificate must be issued.

In practice, the certification body will take a planned relocation into account when scheduling audits. In addition, a relocation usually does not come as a surprise, so during audits in the run-up to the move the certification body will already assess whether the company has identified the consequences of the relocation for, among other things, the inventory of environmental aspects and laws and regulations. A company is required to control the environmental consequences of a planned relocation within its environmental management system as well.

ISO 19011 is available for conducting management system audits. Since ISO 19011 is not a standard but a guideline, users are free to decide how to apply it. The guideline provides practical information for the preparation, execution, and follow-up of internal audits. It also goes into detail on auditor competence. The guideline offers information to help you prepare and conduct your internal audits in a sound way. In addition to ISO 19011, our information sheet on conducting internal audits (Dutch) also provides suggestions for carrying out internal audits.

The overview of environmental aspects is an essential part of the environmental management system. If the environmental aspects associated with the organization’s activities, products, and services are known, it becomes clear where the environmental management system should focus.

Partly on the basis of the significant environmental aspects (clause 6.1.2), it is determined which risks and opportunities are relevant to the organization (6.1.1). The determination of significance is based on environmental impact. The results of the context analysis (4.1 and 4.2) are used in defining the criteria on which significance is assessed. The (significant) environmental aspects are used to determine whether laws and regulations apply (6.1.3), to set objectives (6.2.1), to create awareness (7.3), to determine the necessary monitoring and measurements (9.1.1), and for management review (9.2). In other words, environmental aspects form the basis for controlling and improving the organization’s environmental performance. Environmental aspects of outsourced activities are also controlled and reduced where possible. SCCM has produced an information sheet on carrying out an inventory and evaluation of environmental aspects (Dutch).

Responsibility in the supply chain is linked to specific environmental aspects, not to environmental management in a broad sense. It is reasonable to expect an overview of the important environmental aspects associated with services and/or products provided by third parties. The presence of an ISO 14001 certificate is important because it tells the customer that compliance with laws and regulations is secured at the supplier and that there is a good understanding of environmental aspects and work is being done on improvement. The only question is whether the supplier also gives priority to the environmental aspects that are important to the customer. Therefore, it is not sufficient to require only an ISO 14001 certificate from a supplier. Your organization will also need to think about the important environmental aspects itself and ensure that performance requirements are laid down, for example in specifications or in the assignment. The standard then requires (clause 8.1) that the organization ensures compliance with the agreements made by the supplier.

The various management system standards, such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and ISO 45001, all have the same structure. This makes it entirely possible to set up an integrated management system.

Each organization can decide for itself how the management systems are implemented: completely separate, integrated, or integrated in parts. The condition is that all requirements from the different standards are met. The standard does not prescribe how this should be done. The organization is free to determine its own approach. What is important is that it is clearly documented how the organization has implemented the different management systems. Certification audits are also combined. The certification body ensures that an audit team is assembled that can assess all the different management systems. The audits are scheduled in such a way that all relevant parts of the different management systems are sufficiently covered. In the end, the organization receives a separate certificate for each management system.
 

SCCM maintains a database of certified organizations. This database includes all organizations certified in the Netherlands by a certification body affiliated with SCCM. The database is available on our website. You can search the database by name, location, or sector.

If you believe that a certified organization is not complying with the certificate’s requirements, you can file a complaint with that organization. Based on the standard’s requirements, the organization must respond to it.

Complaints concerning the certification process can be submitted to the organization itself, the certification body (CB), the Raad voor Accreditatie (RvA), or SCCM. Of course, you may also file a complaint with the competent authority, but then the complaint must concern the permit or the company’s compliance with legal requirements.

All involved organizations have their own procedures for handling complaints. The certification body checks how companies handle complaints, and the RvA checks how the certification bodies handle complaints. Complaints about the company should be submitted to the company itself. If you believe a company has been certified incorrectly, you should contact the certification body. You may also contact SCCM about this. Complaints about the functioning of the certification body should be addressed to the RvA or SCCM. Information on how to file a complaint can be found here.