Getting ISO 14001 Certified in Houston, Texas (TX)
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IQC The ISO Pros is an ISO training and consulting company you can trust and depend on. We can help you get certified for a huge range of ISO standards, and ISO 14001 is one of them. If you want your organization to get certified to ISO 14001, contact us now!
Why should you get ISO certified?
Before moving forward, let’s generally understand why it is important to get certified. ISO standards bring along guidelines, clauses, and certain requirements. For getting certified, an organization has to abide by these guidelines and fulfill the requirements.
The motive of fulfilling the requirements and following the guidelines is to improve the processes, products, services, security, revenue, etc. Now answer this question. Can you improve your organization in any way without a solid foundation or a structure? No, right?
It’s the reason ISO standards are required. You can think of ISO standards as the solid foundation required to implement or introduce positive changes.
What is ISO 14001?
ISO 14001 is an ISO standard meant to protect the environment. You need to fulfill some requirements to establish and maintain an effective Environmental Management system or EMS. The prime motive of this certification is to check and reduce the impact of your organization’s activities on the environment.
Once you implement the guidelines and fulfill the requirements, you can apply for ISO 14001 certification.
Is it mandatory to get ISO 14001 certified?
It may not be mandatory, but it is essential. Many organizations across the world pay no attention to environmental issues. No one is really ready to check their company’s impact on the environment, let alone reducing those impacts. And this is deteriorating the environment’s condition.
However, with ISO 14001 certification, protecting the environment is not tough. Now, you’ll say what’s in it for your organization? Well, everything. ISO 14001 can bring huge benefits to your organization. Read below to discover.
Benefits of getting ISO 14001 certified
Here are the benefits of getting ISO 14001 certified: –
Any and every ISO standard holds the potential of boosting your recognition in the market. Take the example of ISO 14001. Now, this is an international level ISO standard that focuses on creating an effective EMS or environmental management system. And when your organization gets certified to this standard, your organization gets more credibility from customers and stakeholders. Also, your organization comes up as a more responsible firm that cares for the environment. This will further improve your reputation and image in the market. When you have better recognition and reputation, more customers and contractors want to do business with you. Its because this certification ensures that you follow the best practices in your organization. And all this pours down to better revenue for your organization. We derive everything from the environment, and it becomes the duty of everyone to make sure that the environment is not hurt. And this is what ISO 14001 certification helps in achieving. The standard helps in identifying and then reducing the impact of activities of your organization on the environment. You can improve the product and service quality too. It's because ISO 14001 fosters better processes that are environmentally friendly and efficient. And this will help you improve the processes and eventually the products your organization deals with. Do you know if your impact on the environment goes unchecked for long, your organization might attract a hefty fee or even a legal action sometimes? However, you can stop this by getting certified to ISO 14001. It's because this certification ensures that your organization has a low and reducing impact on the environment. So, this will prevent you from facing any legal action or a hefty fee. Contact IQC The ISO Pros now to make sure of it. An organization is incomplete without good customer & stakeholder relations. Good customers will bring business, and good stakeholders will help you in scaling your business. And this is possible with ISO 14001. With this certification, you can prove to the world your concern regarding the environment. This will create a sympathetic factor in the hearts of other people. It will portray your organization as more responsible. And this, in turn, will improve the customer relations. Your stakeholders will also be eager to invest in a company like yours that takes good care of the environment. It's essential for every organization to reduce wastage and save on expenses to improve profit margins. And this is quite possible with ISO 14001. This ISO standard shares the requirements for maintaining an EMS. And all the processes involved are efficient and promote low wastage. When you waste less, you save more and earn more. This is a simple logic of how you're going to save good money with ISO 14001. Also, with this certification in place, your organization won't have to pay any fees or find for not abiding by the mandatory environmental guidelines. One of the things why organizations fail to grow is the unjust use of resources. You can think of resources like energy, water, etc. When there's an unjust use of resources, it leads to wastage, leading to noncompliance or unhealthy practices. However, with ISO 14001, you can change it. As this standard focuses on efficient processes, it'll motivate you to use natural resources. After all, you can only become environmentally friendly if you consume less and waste less. Another thing that is very important for organizations to grow is efficient processes. And this is very well achievable with ISO 14001. This certification ensures that you have environmentally friendly procedures in place. And this is only possible if you have efficient processes. Fortunately, you'll automatically achieve within when you implement this standard in your system. So, to make your processes more efficient, connect with IQC The ISO Pros now!
Better Recognition & Revenue
Improved environmental protection & product and service quality
Prevent any legal action
Better stakeholder & Customer relation
More Savings
Righteous use of resources
Efficient Processes
Do you want to enjoy the above benefits?
Well, of course, you do. However, the above benefits are post-implementation and post-certification benefits. And for implementation and certification, you need an ISO consulting company like IQC. The ISO Pros. We’ll help you meet the requirements and certify for ISO 14001.
Read along to know about the requirements for ISO 14001 certification.
Documentation
It’s the most basic requirement for any ISO standard. Preparing a documented proof is mandatory. You should create documentation proving your ability or efficiency to identify and reduce your impact on the environment. You should be able to prove that you have the system to ensure the above in place.
The documentation is easy to prepare. You need not follow a specific format. You can go through the documentation requirements as per the standard and prepare accordingly. All in all, the proof should be strong enough to convince the auditors.
Creating operational control procedures
Depending on what business domain you’re in, you need to create the control procedures. Once you create those controls, you need to execute them in your organization. You can do it as you want as there’s no specific way of achieving this.
However, your control procedures should ensure the below: –
- It meets the compliance and legal requirements
- It assesses and helps in setting environmental objectives.
- It defines all the internal and external processes.
Identifying the Risks and opportunities
An EMS or an environmental management system is in place to make sure that you take good care of the environment. You deal with risk management using an effective EMS. However, you need to look for opportunities to improve the EMS as well. There’s no specific manner of doing this, but you need to make sure that both the risks and opportunities are taken note of.
A system to identify and deal with the environmental aspects
In this section, you need to find what all aspects within your organization impact the environment. This is important if you want to establish a successful EMS. You should be aware of what those aspects are and how they affect the environment.
Examples of some common aspects: –
- Use of any recyclable items
- Use of resources
- Smoke or emission of fumes
There can be other areas where leakage could be a possibility. The motive is to find and analyze their impact on the environment. You can use a scoring mechanism to record the results and track progress using the same results after a few months. This will help you improve and check where you’ve come.
Emergency Preparation & Response
This section wants your organization to prepare for any emergencies that might affect your company or the environment. You need to come up with an effective & unique procedure that explains your action plan to identify and deal with emergencies.
The motive of this step in the certification process is to make sure that it has the least impact on the environment. You can involve employees from your organization to deal with such cases. But you need to train them well in order to get the results you expect.
Employee competence records
Every ISO standard comes with certain new processes to be integrated into the existing system. And ISO 14001 is no exception. When you integrate the EMS into your existing system, chaos is obvious. Most of your employees won’t be able to correctly understand how it works or operates and how they should react.
But with proper training, you can achieve this. You need to train your employees and record their level of competence towards the EMS or the standard. When you record the level of competence, you’ll be able to track the progress your employees have made. This way, you can help them improve.
Creating objectives and achieving them
Now, to reduce the impact and to get certified, you need to create feasible objectives. It can be anything from reducing water usage to reducing carbon emissions. But one thing you should keep in mind is that the goals should be quantifiable.
Instead of saying that you’ll reduce energy usage, you should say that you’ll reduce energy usage by 30% in the coming year. This way, you’ll get bonded to achieve the desired goals in a given time interval. Only setting objectives is not enough. You’ll have to formulate ways or a procedure to achieve those objectives or goals.
You should clearly list: –
- A timeline for achieving the goal
- A process to track the progress
- Delegation of tasks in the organization
- Systems or services required to achieve the objective
Listing the Interested parties
You must list all the parties who can directly or indirectly impact your organization’s ability to achieve a working EMS. You need to record the requirements or demands made by the interested parties.
Once you’re done recording the requirements, you need to come up with an action plan that ensures the requirements are met. An interested party is a person or an organization that wants you to reduce your carbon emission or energy usage.
Evidence of Communication
Everyone, including your employees and suppliers, must be aware of their duties in regard to maintaining an EMS. You need to present proof that you have effectively communicated all the requirements to your employees via internal communication channels like emails, meetings, intranet announcements, etc.
And for external communication, you should record the emails and meetings. You should be able to clearly mention all expectations you have in mind for your supplier. It’s important to maintain proof as the auditors will ask for the same from you.
Why come to IQC The ISO Pros
ISO 14001 comes with some strict procedural requirements you need to fulfill. It can be quite disturbing if you do it on your own without the right experience, resources, time, and skills. But if you hire an ISO consulting company like IQC The ISO Pros, this entire procedure can be easy.
IQC The ISO Pros is a renowned ISO consulting company in Houston, Texas (TX). Our expert consultants have assisted hundreds of companies in getting certified to numerous ISO standards, including ISO 14001. If you want, we can assist you too. Here is why you should choose IQC The ISO Pros: –
If you're not experienced enough or familiar with ISO standards, integrating standard guidelines and certifying for the same can be hard. It's the reason why you need IQC The ISO Pros. Our professionals have successfully managed over a hundred ISO certifications. And it has given us all the experience and exposure required to help your organization with the certification procedure. Our professionals are aware of what processes to follow and what not to follow. And this will help you not only save time but money too. So, connect with one of the most experienced consultants now! Knowing everything about ISO standards is essential if you want to get certified in the first attempt. It's because there's so much to do and so much to look for. And without ample knowledge and correct info, you won't be able to get certified. However, if you hire IQC The ISO Pros, we'll take all your burden. It's not that you won't have to lift a finger, but we’ll handle the hard part. We know ISO standards inside out and have detailed insights into the involved clauses. Our professionals stay up to date, so you don't have to. So, if you want to lower the burden of going through the ISO standards all alone, prefer IQC The ISO Pros. Implementation is the part where you spend the most time and knowledge. And no matter what, the implementation should be done right. It's because the implementation is linked directly to getting certified. But when you're with IQC the ISO Pros, you won't have to worry about much. It's because we formulate a unique strategy for implementing ISO standards for every project we take. A different strategy is necessary because different businesses have unique problems and demand a unique solution. Also, it helps us analyze the system and implement the standard better. Let's talk money. Some companies stay away from ISO consulting companies as they charge too much. It could be true to some extent, but not always. IQC The ISO Pros offer consulting and ISO implementation at prices you can easily afford. We have formulated a strategy using which we can offer world-class services at competitive prices. So, you don't have to throw the benefits of getting ISO certified because of an unnecessarily high price.
IQC The ISO Pros are experienced ISO consultants
IQC The ISO Pros know ISO standards inside out
IQC The ISO Pros can help you with easy standard implementation
IQC The ISO Pros can help you with affordable consulting services
Contact us now!
Getting 14001 certified with ISO IQC The ISO Pros is easy. You won’t have to go through all the clauses because we already have. Also, we’ll make sure that you can focus on your day-to-day tasks while the implementation is in progress. So, call IQC The ISO Pros now!