All About ISO

There is no denying that attaining ISO 14001 certification of your environmental management system (EMS) requires financial resources. However, once a facility is certified, there is an opportunity to recoup some of the money spent in attaining the certification. One of the underlying principles of ISO 14001 is to create a program that if implemented will show continual improvement. This continual improvement is achieved and measured as part of the implementation of the EMS by evaluating on a regular basis a facility’s environmental aspects and setting goals (objectives and targets). 

A common objective and target I have seen in a number of ISO 14001 EMSs is to reduce the amount of waste generated by a certain percentage. By setting this as a goal, facility personnel look at facility operations and identify ways to achieve the goal. Then through the ISO 14001 EMS, method(s) of waste reduction are implemented. On the conservative side, these waste reductions have resulted in a reduction in waste disposal costs of between 10 and 20% for a facility. Reducing waste generation can also result in associated cost savings at a facility including:

·       Reductions in water use

·       Reductions in fuel and electricity use

·       Reductions in raw material use

·       Increased productivity.