The Crucial Role of ISO Standards
Although the implementation of an ISO standard is challenging, addressing everything from costs, through team engagement, and finally integration with the current activities of the organization, the benefits that present themselves in the end are undeniable.
The benefits of each standard are individual and relate to their objective, but it’s a fact, the long-term advantages for society are hardly noticed by the organization, let’s see some of them.
ISO 14001:2015 – Environmental Management System
ISO 14001 is part of the ISO 14000 family, which focuses on aspects of environmental management.
“The objective of this Standard is to provide organizations with a framework for the protection of the environment and enable a response to changing environmental conditions in balance with socio-economic needs. This Standard specifies the requirements that allow an organization to achieve the intended outcomes and defined for its environmental management system.”
ISO 14001:2015
The standard encourages organizations to adopt methods that identify and control the impact their activities have on the environment, mainly regarding the lifecycle of production or service.
The lifecycle encompasses what impacts the organization has at the stage of production, distribution, and disposal, that is, it’s not enough to produce, your company is responsible for the product and its effects on the environment from start to finish, this is the strongest factor of how this ISO standard and climate changes intertwine.
Read the Complete Guide to ISO 14001:2015.
ISO 50001:2018 – Energy Management System
The standard provides a framework for the creation, implementation, maintenance, and improvement of an energy management system.
“The purpose of this Document is to enable organizations to establish the systems and processes necessary to improve energy performance continuously, including energy efficiency, energy use, and consumption […]”
ISO 50001:2018
Based on the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) cycle, ISO 50001 encourages organizations to plan and implement energy improvement actions, aiming for better energy performance. Why does this matter?
By improving energy efficiency, organizations can reduce their environmental impacts in operations, such as greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts associated with the extraction, production, and use of energy.
ISO Standards and Global Climate Policy
ISO standards, especially those focused on environmental management, offer frameworks that help companies operate more sustainably and efficiently. Moreover, they complement global climate policies, such as the Paris Agreement, whose goal is to limit the global temperature increase in this century.
Finally, it is essential to emphasize that the adoption of sustainable practices is encouraged by ISO at all levels of society, from corporations, governments, and consumers. They present ways to operationalize climate commitments through practical and verifiable actions, moving from the utopian to the operational itself.
We hope this has helped you understand how ISO and Climate Change are related, leave your comment below 😉
