ISO 14001 is undergoing a revision—it’s up to you
AFNOR is coordinating France's position regarding the update of the flagship standard for environmental management systems. Small, medium, and large companies are invited to join the standards committee.
Environmental protection
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A promise is a promise! In January 2022, we announced that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) had given itself twelve months to determine whether or not there was a need to revise the ISO 14001 voluntary standard , this comprehensive guide that has been explaining for twenty-seven years how to establish and maintain an environmental management system. The answer is now clear: yes. The latest version of the standard , which dates back to 2015, just like its “big sister” ISO 9001, will therefore have a successor, at the earliest in 2025. And it’s up to you to shape this new standard.
It must be said that a lot has changed over the past ten years. The issue of carbon, for example, has taken on enormous significance—to the point, in fact, that it sometimes obscures the inherently multifaceted perspective that defines environmental management.
Decarbonization alone will not bring about the ecological transition. While efforts must certainly focus on climate change mitigation and adaptation, we must not overlook the sustainable use of marine resources, the circular economy, pollution prevention, and biodiversity issues. The ISO 14001 standard has the merit of listing all the environmental issues that need to be considered, leaving nothing out, while ensuring that addressing one does not harm another
Lina IsmailHead of Development and Innovation
ISO 14001: Strengthening the Life Cycle Approach
A new cycle for ISO 14001: Join us!
AFNOR is coordinating France’s position regarding the update of the flagship standard for environmental management systems. Small, medium, and large companies are invited to join the standards committee! Lina Ismail and Alexandre Oliveira provide more details on the revision of this important voluntary standard!
The new version of the standard should reinforce this holistic approach to the subject, regardless of the views of other ISO member countries that wish to emphasize the carbon aspect. On this point, France is in agreement with Canada. The members of
the standardization committee
The groups I lead agree and suggest, among other areas for improvement in the standard, the lifecycle approach.
SMEs, micro-enterprises, mid-sized companies, large corporations, manufacturers, as well as service providers and logistics firms… It is all the more strategic to involve your environmental manager in updating the standard, given that some 50,000 European companies are facing the new non-financial reporting requirements introduced by the CSRD directive. Within the company, information will need to be collected across the entire ESG spectrum (environmental, social, governance)—information that will be readily available for the environmental aspect if you are implementing ISO 14001. Similarly, the challenges related to energy efficiency and the water crisis—which will be highly relevant in 2023—will be easier to address if you already have an internal management tool in place.
Having a standards expert work closely with your teams can also be extremely helpful, and to that end, AFNOR BAO is the solution for finding the right person.
ISO 14001 continues to establish itself as the leading standard for environmental management worldwide: according to ISO, 420,000 organizations held active ISO 14001 certification as of December 31, 2021, compared to 348,000 in 2020 and 312,000 in 2019.
