Dear Customer;
On February 22, 2024, the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) decided to add and incorporate two new textual expressions into a series of existing management system standards, as well as to include them in all new standards currently being developed/revised, considering the need to evaluate the impact of the climate change management system on achieving the intended outcomes, in order to support the “London Climate Change Declaration.”
The IAF Technical Committee (TC) has published the changes as an official decision to clarify the impact of these changes on accreditation bodies, certification bodies, and certified organizations. (https://iaf.nu/iaf_system/uploads/documents/Joint_ISO-IAF_Communique_re_Climate_Change_Amds_to_ISO_MSS_Feb_2024_Final.pdf)
In line with this decision and publication, the specifications of various ISO standards have been organized as follows. (https://www.iso.org/standard/88431.html)
- ISO 9001:2015/Amd 1:2024
- ISO 14001/Amd 1:2024
- ISO 45001 Amd 1:2024
- ISO 22000 Amd 1:2024
- ISO 50001 Amd 1:2024
- ISO IEC 27001 Amd 1:2024
The items added with the new change are as follows.
- 4.1 The organization should determine whether climate change is relevant.
- 4.2 NOTE: Relevant parties may have requirements related to climate change.
Actions Required by Our Certified Organizations in This Context;
- It should be determined whether climate change is related to other issues, and if relevant, it should be assessed under risk evaluation within the management system standards.
- In cases where multiple management systems (e.g., Quality Management and Health and Safety Management) are operated, if relevant, climate change will be evaluated under each management system standard.
- It is noted that some climate change issues and risks may be of a general nature, regardless of the management system scope or industry (e.g., related to regulatory compliance, operational compliance, and corporate resilience), while others will be specifically linked to the requirements of management system standards for specific industries and the characteristics of the organization (e.g., energy production, agriculture, and fisheries) (e.g., geographic location, nature of the supply chain, or workforce dynamics).
Impact of the Change on 3rd Party Audits and the Certification Process;
In management system audits conducted by Kioscert, issues affecting climate change and the organization and its context will be questioned in accordance with the latest published text. If it is found that all relevant internal and external issues, including climate change, are not considered, an appropriate finding will be raised.
Management system standards will go through the ISO change process, but the following points should be noted that there is no need to revise the standard information on the certificates:
- The publication year of each Management System standard will not change.
- There is no change in the scope of the Certified Management System application.
- There is no significant impact on the effectiveness of the Certified Management System.
- The methods and actions to be implemented by certified organizations due to the new requirement will be similar to the methods and actions they would take in the future if changes occur in other contextual issues already addressed within the management system.
We present this information for your attention.