ISO 14001 – Is Life Cycle Perspective a requirement?

 

ISO 14001:2015 in its new avatar introduced the concept of “life cycle perspective” in planning and implementing the environmental management system. Candidates having completed an ISO 14001 lead auditor training will learn that a life cycle perspective is not a requirement per ISO 14001. The standard does, however, ask companies to consider a life cycle perspective in designing their procedures and services.

Let us first take a look at the definition of life cycle perspective. Per ISO it is defined as “Consecutive and interlinked stages of a product (or service) system, from raw material acquisition or generation from natural resources to final disposal.” As such when taking a life cycle perspective into consideration companies will be looking at the following:

•        Procurement of raw materials – Are they sustainable, biodegradable, recyclable and/or reusable.

•        Design – to include a consideration for how much raw materials will be used. Can these be reduced. Perhaps the product is designed to consume lesser water, electricity and other resources.

•        Production – Can the production eb carried out in a sustainable manner? Not too long-ago Coca-Cola took measure to considerably reduce the amount of water it took to produce one liter of coke.

•        Transportation/delivery – How can the planning be done to reduce the transportation and delivery impacts. Perhaps sometimes manufacturing or delivering the service closer to the point of final use.

•        End-of-life treatment and final disposal – ISO 14001 lead auditortraining discusses the various options that companies can take into consideration for reducing environmental impacts at the end of life phase.

Candidates having completed an ISO 14001 lead auditor training are now familiar with the standard requirements, how to interpret it for their organizations and how to implement it. They learn what are requirements per the standard and where the standard leaves it up to the organization to consider the risk of not taking measures to control the impacts. The organization can only control that which it can control and as such the life cycle perspective is limited to this controlled area. For example, if a organization only manufactures and does not design then it does not have any control over the design phase of a product. Additionally, if a customer wants a product built in a certain way with certain materials then the manufacturer has to comply.

This life cycle perspective is in alignment with ISO 14001’s risk-based thinking requirement. Auditors trained on an ISO 14001 lead auditor training will look for evidence of implementation of this risk-based thinking withing the organization. QMII’s ISO 14001 lead auditor training is taught by experienced field auditors and gives participants a clear understanding of the requirement of ISO 14001 and how to apply them to your management system.