International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies from 130 countries. ISO develops voluntary technical standards in order to facilitate international trade of goods and services. In the past the ISO’s standards usually involved negotiating a single standard from various existing national standards. However, in the last few decades ISO’s role has expanded to actually developing new standards in areas where few standards have been written, such as in quality management in the ISO 9000 series, and in environmental management in the ISO 14000 series. Canada has been very involved in ISO activities, particularly with ISO 14000 where Canada holds the international secretariat.

ISO 14001 is the only standard in the ISO 14000 series against which an organization’s environmental management system can be certified. ISO 14001 requires that an organization have an environmental management system (EMS). This EMS provides a framework for the organization to use to identify and address the significant environmental aspects and related impacts of its activities, products and services. ISO 14001 requires that the organization adhere to all relevant legislation and make a commitment to continual improvement. However the ISO standard does not set specific environmental performance criteria nor does it establish absolute requirements for environmental performance; these are defined by the applicant.

Certification to ISO 14001 requires that an organization:

• establish an appropriate environmental policy;
• determine significant environmental impacts of its activities (past, present or planned) and of the products/services it produces;
• identify the relevant environmental legislative and regulatory requirements;
• identify priorities and set appropriate environmental objectives and targets;
• establish a structure and program(s) to enable it to implement the policy and achieve the established objectives and targets;
• facilitate planning, control, monitoring, corrective action, auditing and review activities to ensure both that the policy is complied with and that the environmental management system remains appropriate;
• be capable of adapting to changing circumstances.

There are dozens of additional documents in the ISO 14000 series that set more specific standards for areas such as auditing procedures, life cycle analysis and eco-labelling programs, but they do not result in "certifications". ISO 14061 is a technical report (not a standard) designed to assist forestry companies to apply ISO 14001 to a woodlands operation. ISO 14061 tries to link the management system approach of ISO 14001 and the range of forest policy and forest management performance objectives, including SFM principles and intergovernmental criteria & indicators, that a forestry organization may consider.

April 2002