ISO 14001: Environmental Management System
What is ISO 14001? Why Is It Important?
It is an accepted fact all over the world that resources are not infinite and that the environmental effects of products and activities are not local and regional but global. ISO 14001, prepared by taking this fact into consideration, is a management system created in order to protect the environmental characteristics and natural structure. The ISO 14001 standard aims to minimize the environmental damage caused by industrial organizations due to their activities, and to reduce the consumption of energy and raw materials, while laying the groundwork for more efficient management of environmental risks and opportunities.
ISO 14001 is an internationally recognized standard regarding Environmental Management Systems and provides a guideline on how to manage the environmental aspects of organizations' activities, products and services more effectively.
Establishing an Environmental Management System in accordance with the ISO 14001 standard, the organization ensures that natural resources are not consumed and polluted, or these negative effects are minimized, thereby creating the image of a trustworthy company that respects the environment.
ISO 14001 Standard Principles
Commitment to Obligation and Policy: The organization should determine its environmental policy and make a commitment to the environmental management system.
Planning: The organization should determine the environmental dimensions of its activities, products and services, and select the important ones. It should determine goals and objectives in order to realize its commitments and program the activities it will carry out to achieve these goals and objectives.
Application and Process: The organization should develop a support mechanism with the necessary skills and opportunities in order to perform an effective implementation in order to realize its environmental policy and achieve its goals and objectives.
Control and Corrective Action: The organization should measure, monitor, and evaluate the environmental performance and the degree of success in this activity.
Review and Development: The organization should review and continuously improve its environmental management system in order to improve its overall environmental performance and its overall degree of success.
Benefits of ISO 14001
- Ensuring compliance with national and international environmental conditions and laws
- Ensuring environmental impact assessment and control
- Providing competitive advantage by increasing the reputation of the organization
- Ensuring the trust and loyalty of customers in terms of environmental impacts
- Reducing expenses and increasing productivity by using resources effectively
- Preparing action plans for emergencies (such as earthquake, fire, flood, etc.) and accidents
- Creating an environmentally friendly corporate image
- Ensuring the recycling of wastes
- By determining potential danger points, accident, etc. ensuring incidents are reduced
- Transition to a clean, healthy, and environmentally friendly business structure
- Controlled waste recycling, careful raw material selection, ensuring better protection of energy and water resources
- Reducing the financial burden of reactive management strategies, such as finding solutions, clearing and paying fines for legal violations
- Improving the quality of workplaces, worker morale, and commitment to organizational values
- Creating new business opportunities in markets where green production processes are important