The context of the organization in ISO 14001: 2015 may seem like a topic that has already been much discussed, but there is a great doubt in the market about the differences between this requirement in the Standards that are part of Annex SL such as ISO 9001, ISO 37001, ISO 45001 among others.
The organization’s context for the environmental management system should approach internal and external issues that are relevant to the organization’s purpose and that affect the ability to meet the intended results of the environmental management system.
With the above described in accordance with requirement 4.1 of ISO 14001: 2015, there is a difference between ISO 9001, for example, because quality management is directly integrated with the organizational management of a company, however in ISO 14001 the company must evaluate the issues internal and external thinking and evaluating exclusively the environmental management system.
Obviously, any organization can integrate this context assessment with an analysis of the company’s business management scenario, but only the business assessment does not meet the requirements defined by the Standard, since it is necessary to focus on the environmental management system, as in continuation of requirement 4.1 it is clearly described that:
“these issues must include the environmental conditions that affect or are capable of affecting the organization ”.
Therefore, these environmental conditions must be entered in the assessment of the context of the organization, where SWOT can be used as usual by several companies in ISO 9001: 2015, or any other tool and / or method that aims to understand the organization. and its context.
The theme is of fundamental importance, as it is not uncommon for us to audit an organization’s context assessment in ISO 14001: 2015 focused only on business assessment and quality management system.
Therefore, a critical analysis of environmental management systems is necessary if they really address environmental conditions issues in the context, and the same for other regulations appropriate to Annex SL, but other Standards are subjects for other posts. So, how is the organization’s Context in your company’s ISO 14001: 2015?
