ISO 14001 - What will your auditor be asking? Pt 5

With ISO 14001 having changed to 2015 version, what will auditors be looking for? What questions will they be asking?

Generally, when something changes, that will be what the auditor is going to focus on; the vindictive auditor will try to catch you out, to show they know more than you, and make themselves look good. The professional environmental auditor will focus on the continual improvement approach and appreciate that management systems change and improve over time. Either way, to avoid non-conformities, you still need to be prepared.

We’ve put together five key questions we think auditors will be asking, and we’ve also suggested how your environmental management system could address it.

…and for you technical “system types” we’ve added some useful tips to make sure you are fully up to speed.

Here is the final question, with previous questions having been posted over the past week. If you missed some, or want to read them in their entirety, jump across to our website.

5. Environmental aspects – clause 6.1.2

What criteria have you used to determine your significant environmental aspects?

Once an organization has identified its environmental aspects, it needs to then identify the impacts associated with those aspects, and this was in the previous version of ISO 14001. Also in the previous version was the need to then choose the significant aspects. In ISO 14001:2015 the criteria that it used to determine which aspects are significant now has to be documented…and the method and the criteria that is used should provide consistent results.

Useful tip: Many organizations will be addressing this by using a risk matrix, taking into account the likelihood of the impact and the consequence of the impact. Whilst this may be acceptable in some instances, in may not be appropriate in all circumstances and other methods may be more appropriate which better take into account such things as: type, size, frequency, scale, severity, duration, exposure, legal requirements or the concerns of interested parties.