ISO 14000

The ISO 14000 environmental management standards exist to help organizations minimize how their operations negatively affect the environment (cause adverse changes to air, water, or land) and comply with applicable laws and regulations.

ISO 14001 is the international specification for an environmental management system (EMS). It specifies requirements for establishing an environmental policy, determining environmental aspects and impacts of products/activities/services, planning environmental objectives and measurable targets, implementation and operation of programs to meet objectives and targets, checking and corrective action, and management review.

The overall idea of ISO 14000 is to establish an organized approach to systematically reduce the impact of the environmental aspects which an organization can control.

Effective tools for the analysis of environmental aspects of an organization and for the generation of options for improvement are provided by the concept of Cleaner Production. As with ISO 9000, certification is performed by third-party organizations rather than being awarded by ISO directly. The ISO 19011 audit standard applies when auditing for both 9000 and 14000 compliance at once.