ISO 14001, the international environmental management standard, stipulates the internationally recognised requirements to be met by an environmental management system and is part of a family of standards. This family of standards encompasses numerous other standards relating to different areas of environmental management, including the life cycle assessment, key environmental figures and the environmental performance evaluation. It can be applied to both manufacturing companies and service providers.

Aim of the standard

ISO 14001 focuses on the continuous improvement process as a means of achieving each defined goal with regard to the environmental performance of an organisation (company, service provider, authority, etc.). The continuous improvement process is based on the Plan-Do-Check-Act method (PDCA):

Plan: establishing the objectives and processes necessary to achieve implementation of the environmental policy of the organisation

Do: implementation of processes

Check: monitoring of processes with regard to legal and other requirements and the environmental policy objectives of the organisation; publication of environmental performance where appropriate (the success of the organisation with regard to its environmental safety measures)

Act: processes should be corrected (adapted) where necessary;

A company should develop an operational environmental policy, environmental goals, an environmental programme and an appropriate management system in this context that aids the achievement of objectives.

The organisation should set up and implement an environmental management system based on its environmental policy (i.e. its goals with regard to environmental protection) in the first step to achieve the desired environmental performance. Continuous improvement should be achieved through regular inspection of the set (environmental) targets and the environmental management system.

It is expressly emphasised in the standard that it does not stipulate any absolute requirements for environmental performance. It does, however, require the observance of obligations which the organisation has set itself in its environmental policy. One specification which is new to the revised version of ISO 14001 is that this environmental policy must contain stipulations including the observance of pertinent legal obligations and other regulations.

European versions

The EN designation of the actual version of ISO 14001 indicates that the standard issued by ISO has been adopted by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) as a European standard (EN). All members of CEN are then obliged to adopt this standard in an unaltered form.

The current German DIN EN ISO 14001:2009-11 standard was published in November 2009.