Sponsored Content

In 1996, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) first released the ISO 14000 family of standards, which provided tools for organizations wanting to manage their environmental responsibilities. In the years since, ISO 14001—“Environmental management systems—Requirements with guidance for use,” the standard to which organizations can be certified to claim conformance to its requirements, has been revised twice, first in 2004 and again in September 2015. This second revision has allowed the standard to keep pace with an evolving understanding of organizational responsibilities in terms of environmental stewardship.

Why now?

There are several reasons why ISO chose to revise the standard now. Some of this has to do with Annex SL, ISO’s new, template-like management system format that replaced ISO Guide 83. Annex SL guidance documents are intended to help organizations that are certified to multiple ISO management system standards (like ISO 9001 and ISO 14001) by adopting a high-level structure with shared terms, definitions, clause titles, and text.

 …