Introduction
1.1 The ISO 14000 Series
The ISO 14000 series is made up of voluntary standards that provide organizations with guidance on how to manage the environmental aspects of their activities, products, and services more effectively. The series has been developed, and is continually reviewed, to support organizations in their efforts to control environmental impacts in a responsible fashion, and to demonstrate their adherence to environmental policies that satisfy social, legal, and regulatory needs. The ISO 14000 series sets out the requirements for an environmental management system (EMS) that may be used by organizations of any size and type, operating in any industry, sector, or locale, as well as the requirements for registering and auditing such a system.
1.2 The EMS Checklist
This checklist is based on Clause 4 of ISO 14001, Environmental management systems - Specification with guidance for use, which describes the requirements for an effective EMS. The series of questions may be used in a registration audit, in which Certified and qualified auditors review an organization's EMS performance, or as part of a self-audit by an organization's EMS representatives. The checklist questions have been designed to identify every feature of an EMS that should be evaluated in auditing, whether the audit is conducted for the purposes of registraton or for internal review.
1.3 Further Information
The checklist questions in Section 4 are supplemented by definitions and interpretative comments excerpted from ISO and CSA publications. Readers requiring further guidance on any EMS questions should consult Annex A of ISO 14001, which provides a commentary on the requirements of Clause 4, as well as the following related works:
CAN/CSA-ISO 14004, Environmental management systems - General guidelines on principles, systems and supporting techniques;
CSA PLUS 1113, First Steps to Environmentally Responsible Management: A Comprehensive Workbook for Environmental Policy Development (Based on ISO 14000);
CSA PLUS 1117, Competing Leaner, Keener and Greener: A Small Business Guide to ISO 14000;
CSA PLUS 14001, The ISO Essentials;
CSA Z825, Guide to ISO 14000 for Auditors and Users [draft]
A complete bibliography of source documents and related publications is provided in Appendix A.
1.4 Layout of Section 4, EMS Checklist
Section 4 presents, on the right-hand pages, the list of questions developed to cover the EMS requirements set out in ISO 14001. The list follows the numbering of Clause 4 of ISO 14001, but is supplemented, for convenient reference, by Q numbering for each question, noted in the left-hand column.
The facing pages provide a variety of materials that are relevant to each page of questions:
(a) a text box containing the actual text of CAN/CSA-ISO 14001;
(b) a left-hand column, headed Concepts and Comments, that contains s elected excerpts from CAN/CSA-ISO 14004, Environmental management systems - General guidelines on principles, systems and supporting techniques, and CSA Z825, Guide to ISO 14000 for Auditors and Users; and
(c) a right-hand column, headed Definitions, that contains definitions from Clause 3 of CAN/CSA-ISO 14001, from ISO/DIS 14031, and from ISO/DIS 14050.
