All About the Risk Management System of the ISO 14001 Certification
Most of the ISO management standards entail risk management processes to ensure that businesses continue to operate smoothly and improve their performance. Identification of risk and opportunities is made an important aspect of the ISO 14001 certification. It ensures that the Environmental Management System (EMS) achieves the proposed objectives and intended outcomes without any risks and that the environmental performance is improved continuously. To help you understand furthermore about the risk management requirement, we have presented some crucial facts in this article.
General Requirements of Risk Management as Underlined by ISO 14001
Procedure for Identification of Risks
The first step towards fulfilling the risk management requirement is identifying any risks. That is possible when you fully understand the environmental aspects of your organization from where the risks can arise. Use an existing or established methodology for recognizing the risks, assessing, and prioritizing them. Environmental risks also emerge due to noncompliance with legal environmental obligations and other regulations by international authorities. Risks also include the non-addressing of the environmental requirements of interested parties including customers, suppliers, investors, communities or local authorities. If they found out that their environmental concerns are not addressed, it leaves a negative impact on your business and hence, cause reputational damage to a certain extent.
So, the first step in risk management is identifying the risks. That can be done simply by running periodic audits and reviewing the processes, environmental aspects, compliance obligations, and interests of the stakeholders.
Actions for Controlling the Risks
Another important part of risk management is taking appropriate actions to mitigate those risks. The standard mentions that the organization should document all the risks and the management team should determine what actions should be taken to address them. Some of the key actions that are taken include:
• Revising of environmental objectives
• Incorporation of new processes into the EMS
• Introduction of changes in processes of the EMS
• Implementation of control procedures
• Supplier evaluation and issue of environmental criteria to the suppliers
• Training programs to make the employees aware of controls
Benefits of the Risk Management Aspect of ISO 14001
Risk management is made an inevitable part of the ISO 14001 requirements because it provides organizations with numerous benefits to their business as well as stakeholders.
The key benefits include:
• Focus on improvement in environmental performance which has a positive impact on the reputation of your organization to the clients and stakeholders. It establishes a legacy of your organization that can help your business to grow in the future.
• With improvements brought into processes or employees’ roles after risk assessment, your organization can seriously minimize the risks and contribute towards saving the environment of our planet.
• Assessing the risks and involving the management team to act will bring a fundamental change in the overall environmental performance of your organization. It can be easily observed by measuring the changes in the key performance indicators or KPIs. This helps your organization to demonstrate the competence of the EMS to auditors and maintain the standard certification continuously for a long time.
• With risk assessment, you can ensure the prevention of risks or major incidents that can affect the environment. It makes your organization prepared to handle, mitigate, or eliminate the risks after evaluating its nature, the magnitude of impacts, likelihood of occurrence, frequency, etc. Prevention and preparation with emergency contingency plans are far better than facing the risks, damages, and costs and then recovering from them.
In summary, fulfilling all the requirements of the risk management of the ISO 14001 standard will benefit both your organization as well as the planet. When every organization achieves the ISO 14001 certification by complying with the requirements of risk management, they collectively contribute to minimizing the risks to the environment and making the planet safer and sustainable. Thus, if you are achieving the certification, make sure to understand the requirement of risk management and act consciously to fulfill it.
Author Bio:
Damon Anderson is the head consultant at a distinguished ISO consultancy company that offers a range of certification assurance services and consultation to businesses that require ISO certifications. He heads the ISO 14001 certification consultation team and has an in-depth knowledge of the standard which he likes to share through his articles.
Contact Details:
Business Name: Compliancehelp Consulting, LLC
Email Id: info@quality-assurance.com
Phone No: 877 238 5855
