Family Of ISO 14000 Standards

Family of ISO 14000 include standards as follows:

1. ISO 14001: Environmental management systems—Requirements with guidance for use.

2. ISO 14004: Environmental management systems—General guidelines on principles, systems and support techniques.

3. ISO 14015: Environmental assessment of sites and organizations.

4. ISO 14020: Include series (14020 to 14025) Environmental labels and declarations.

5. ISO 14031: Environmental performance evaluation—Guidelines.

6. ISO 14040: Include series (14040 to 14049), Life Cycle Assessment, LCA, discusses pre-production planning and environment goal setting.

7. ISO 14050: Terms and definitions.

8. ISO 14062: Discusses making improvements to environmental impact goals.

9. ISO 14063: Environmental communication—Guidelines and examples

10. ISO 19011: which specifies one audit protocol for both 14000 and 9000 series standards together.

ISO 14001 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AUDIT

In order to be in conformance with this provision of ISO 14001 an organization must be able to answer the overall question: “How does the organization conduct environmental audits of the EMS?”. In order to answer that question four specific tasks must be addressed under the Management System Audit section of the standard.
First, the organization must develop a program and related procedures that define an audit plan of the environmental management system. In addition the program must define frequency of the audit process. Second, the procedures must specify the methodology of the audit process, including the qualifications of the auditors. Third, the audit reports must be submitted to top management. Fourth, the audit reports must provide recommendations directed at correcting any reported nonconformance that was discovered in the audit process.
The audit process discussed in this section of the standard is directed at internal audits. The standard is silent on the frequency issue. Generally accepted practice with a mature ISO 14001 system is a total audit of the system once a year. In the implementation phase of an environmental management system a more frequent audit process might be appropriate. In addition any part of the environmental management system that has been previously determined to be in nonconformance should be audited with an increased frequency. The methodology of the audit process required by the standard requires two distinct steps:
A. determine whether the environmental management system conforms to the requirements of ISO 14001, andB. that the system has been managed as described in the Environmental Policy statement, the Environmental Objectives and Targets, and the related work descriptions and procedures.
It is critical that an audit report that relates a nonconformance be forwarded to top management promptly. The internal audit staff must be competent with respect to the requirements of ISO 14001.

ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 in plain language

Both “ISO 9000” and “ISO 14000” are actually families of standards which are referred to under these generic titles for convenience. Both families consist of standards and guidelines relating to management systems, and related supporting standards on terminology and specific tools, such as auditing (the process of checking that the management systemconforms to the standard).
ISO 9000 is primarily concerned with “quality management“. In the everyday context, like “beauty”, everyone may have his or her idea of what “quality” is. But, in the ISO 9000 context, the standardized definition of quality refers to all those features of a product (or service) which are required by the customer. “Quality management” means what the organization does to ensure that its products or services satisfy the customer’s quality requirements and comply with any regulationsapplicable to those products or services.
ISO 14000 is primarily concerned with “environmental management”. In plain language, this means what the organization does to minimize harmful effects on the environment caused by its activities.
In addition, both ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 require organizations that implement them to improve their performance continually in, respectively, quality and environmental management.
Both ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 concern the way an organization goes about its work, and not directly the result of this work. In other words, they both concern processes, and not products – at least, not directly. Nevertheless, the way in which the organization manages its processes is obviously going to affect its final product.
In the case of ISO 9000, the efficient and effective management of processes is, for example, going to affect whether or not everything has been done to ensure that the product satisfies the customer’s quality requirements. In the case of ISO 14000, the efficient and effective management of processes is going to affect whether or not everything has been done to ensure a product will have the least harmful impact on the environment, at any stage in its life cycle, either by pollution, or by depleting natural resources.
However, neither ISO 9000 nor ISO 14000 are product standards. The management system standards in these families state requirements for what the organization must do to manage processes influencing quality (ISO 9000) or the processes influencing the impact of the organization’s activities on the environment (ISO 14000). In both cases, the philosophy is that management system requirements are generic. No matter what the organization is or does, if it wants to establish a quality management system or an environmental management system, then such a system has a number of essential features which are spelled out in the relevant ISO 9000 or ISO 14000 standards.