Many Interested parties (Stakeholders)care about compliance performance. They care because compliance issues indicate a lack of commitment and control and ineffective risk management.
Stakeholders don’t want to be perceived that way by association. It is a significant part of what ISO 14001:2015 is designed to address.
ISO 14001 is a series of high-level requirements when fully implemented in an organization through leadership, planning, support, controls, monitoring, and improvement, create an environmental management system (EMS) that can achieve the above-mentioned intended outcomes.
This article focuses on the interested parties and meeting their compliance obligations.
The story starts with your Interested Parties.
These are entities that have an interest in what your organization does and expect certain things from it.
These expectations may be a form of regulation if the interested party is a governmental entity. Or a specific level of performance if the interested party is the owner or a customer.
The expectations that your organization commits or must adhere to become Compliance Obligations.
As a result of listening to your Interested Parties, your organization might also identify some Risks or Opportunities that should be addressed.
Storage of waste drums outside might be an identified risk. The Compliance Obligations Risks, and Opportunities are acted on through Planning Action.
That’s when your organization will decide what resources, training, controls, and monitoring are called for.
The outcome of the monitoring and subsequent analysis and evaluation will be an understanding of your organization’s degree of conformance and compliance.
This information might be shared internally with employees or top management and will be shared through periodic reporting to the relevant environmental agencies and possibly through voluntary reporting such as a sustainability report.
Finally, the degree to which this whole process is working will be assessed by a Compliance Evaluation, which usually takes the form of an audit.
Let’s take an example – one of your major customers is very active in sustainability and has a new supply chain program. They are assessing their suppliers, including your organization, on their EMS performance.
This assessment includes questionnaires, audits, and annual reporting. One of the EMS requirements relates to your organization’s compliance. Is ISO 14001:2015 capable of assisting with this challenge?
This is probably how it would unfold:
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- You’ve recognized your major customer as an Interested Party that expects its suppliers to comply with current legislation.
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- You’ve had a history of hazardous waste fines and breaches in legislation that have not been effectively resolved. This risk has now escalated because it’s no longer strictly between you and the regulator. Management commitment now exists to support actions to improve the program.
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- You create an action plan to refresh the hazardous waste program to ensure proper management including disposal of the drums, labels are available and completed properly, storage locations are well maintained, and the waste does not accumulate before being picked up by a licensed waste management company.
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- You then roll out these updated controls and make sure everyone is trained, there is ownership and accountability.
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- You will monitor the program through inspections, an annual compliance audit, and tracking spreadsheets and report on your performance to management.
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- You are confident that when you communicate your new reports to the customer they will be satisfied with the improvements you have made.
In conclusion,
Certification of your ISO 14001:2015 environmental management system can assist with implementing, maintaining, and improving your compliance obligations as well as enhancing your environmental performance hence growing your business
