ISO14001 certification standard is produced against the background of serious environmental problems (such as greenhouse effect, ozone layer destruction, biodiversity destruction, ecological environment deterioration, marine pollution, etc.) facing human society today. It is the crystallization of environmental management experience of industrial developed countries. Its basic idea is to guide organizations to comply with PDCA. The model establishes the self-restraint mechanism of environmental management. From the highest leadership to every employee, the relationship between their own development and environmental protection should be handled actively and consciously, environmental performance should be continuously improved, effective pollution prevention should be carried out, and finally the healthy development of the organization can be realized. This standard applies to organizations of any type and size and to various geographical, cultural and social environments
Target indicators
Organizations should establish, implement and maintain documented environmental objectives and indicators for their internal functions and levels. If feasible, goals and indicators should be measurable. Targets and indicators should be in line with environmental guidelines and include commitments to pollution prevention, continuous improvement and compliance with applicable laws, regulations and other requirements.
Organizations should take into account laws, regulations and other requirements, as well as their own important environmental factors when establishing and evaluating goals and targets. In addition, consideration should be given to the technical options, financial, operational and operational requirements, as well as the views of the parties concerned.
The organization shall formulate, implement and maintain one or more programmes for achieving its objectives and targets, which shall include:
(a) To define the responsibilities of the relevant functions and levels within the organization to achieve goals and targets;
(b) Ways and timetables to achieve goals and targets
Range
This standard specifies the requirements of the environmental management system, enabling an organization to formulate and implement environmental policies and objectives in accordance with laws and regulations and other requirements it should comply with, as well as information on important environmental factors. It applies to environmental factors identified by those organizations as being able to control or possibly exert influence. However, the standard itself does not propose specific environmental performance criteria.
This standard applies to any organization with the following desires:
(a) Establishing, implementing, maintaining and improving environmental management systems;
(b) To convince oneself of conformity with the stated environmental policy;
(c) To demonstrate compliance with this standard in the following ways;
1) Self-evaluation and self-declaration;
2) Seek confirmation of the conformity of the relevant parties (e.g. customers) of the organization;
3) Seeking external confirmation of its self-declaration;
4) Seek external organizations to certify/register their environmental management.
All requirements specified in this standard can be incorporated into any environmental management. Its application depends on such factors as the organization's environmental policy, its activities, the nature of products and services, and its place and conditions of operation. This standard also provides informative guidance on how to use this standard in Appendix A.
The common problems of ISO14001 certification audit are as follows:
1.Environmental protection information during plant construction
1) Environmental Impact Statement of Construction Projects (Table) - Assessment Report provided by Qualified Assessment Institutions
2) Approval of Environmental Impact Report - Approval of EPA
3) Acceptance and Acceptance of Environmental Protection of Construction Projects --- Acceptance and Acceptance by EPA
4) Fire Acceptance Report - Fire Department Acceptance
2. Identification, Evaluation and Renewal of Environmental Factors
1) The identification of environmental factors is incomplete, mainly in the following situations:
a. Failure to fully identify the scope of the production and operation process, such as: the scope of production and operation includes sales, but the environmental factors in the sales process are not identified;
b. Failure to identify the sequence of production process, identification of environmental factors without sequence, most likely to lead to omissions;
c. The factors that have happened in the past and planned in the future are not taken into account, such as: the company plans to expand the new plant, and the environmental factors existing in the process of the plant expansion are not identified;
d. The life cycle of the product is not fully considered, such as the selection of materials in the process of product design and the recycling and disposal of products after scrapping.
2) The evaluation of environmental factors is unreasonable, and there are deviations in the determination of important environmental factors.
3) Environmental factors are not updated in time, such as:
a. The production process of the product has changed, but the environmental factors have not been re-identified and updated.
b. The material of the product has changed and the environmental factors have not been recognized and updated in time.
c. National and local laws and regulations and other requirements have changed, and environmental factors have not been re-identified and updated in time;
d. Plant relocation to a new site without timely re-identification and renewal of environmental factors
3. Control Planning of Important Environmental Factors
1) Failure to determine its control methods/procedures for all important environmental factors;
2) Control requirements for important environmental factors fail to form corresponding regulations, such as program files, operating documents or other means.
4. Identification and evaluation of laws, regulations and other requirements
1) Laws, regulations and other requirements are not fully identified, especially local regulations and customer requirements are not identified in place;
2) The applicability of relevant laws, regulations and other requirements has not been assessed, and the specific applicable provisions of laws, regulations and other requirements have not been identified.
3) Failure to distribute laws, regulations and other requirements to relevant departments and post personnel;
4) Laws, regulations and other requirements have not been updated in time, and laws, regulations and other requirements that have been revised, updated or abolished have not been recognized, collected and reviewed in time.
5. Environmental Goals, Indicators and Management Programmes
1) Failure to fully take into account the important environmental factors to formulate environmental objectives;
2) There are no specific indicators for the established environmental objectives, and some indicators can not be measured.
3) Failure to formulate corresponding management plans for all targets and indicators, unclear responsibilities, unclear starting and ending dates, and lack of funds and budgets;
4) Failure to adjust and revise the management plan in time according to the implementation of the management plan, such as the company has relocated, the implementation of environmental standards have changed, etc. under the circumstances of no revision of the management plan
6. Organizational structure, responsibilities, authority and resources
1) Lack of requirements for environmental management in the duties and powers of each post;
2) There is no requirement for key positions (such as laboratory technician, machine repair, cleaner, warehouse manager, operator, etc.).
3) Inadequate investment in environmental protection facilities, such as 120 tons of production sewage per day, but the capacity of sewage treatment stations is only 80 tons per day.
7. Competence, Training and Awareness (Human Resources Management)
1) The staffing of key positions is inadequate or the ability fails to meet the requirements. For example, the operators of sewage treatment stations only use Ph value test paper to test the acidity and alkalinity, but they do not have the ability to test other indicators.
2) The training of environmental awareness of the whole staff is insufficient, or there is lack of assessment and evaluation of training effect after training.
3) Post personnel are not clear about the important environmental factors existing in their positions and are not familiar with the control methods of the important environmental factors.
8. Information Exchange
1) The exchange of information required by important environmental factors is not regulated;
2) There is no channel for external information exchange, such as when external parties (community residents, etc.) have opinions about the company and need to complain, there is no public complaint telephone, mailbox or other means;
3) Complaints and complaints from external parties have not been recorded, and they have not been dealt with in time, and the relevant parties have not been responded to in time after treatment.
4) Lack of internal information exchange, such as internal publicity, lectures, meetings and so on.
9. Document Control
1) Documents were not distributed to specific posts, especially key posts;
2) The suitability of documents has not been assessed and updated in time, such as changes in laws and regulations, but the suitability of relevant documents has not been assessed in time, and the necessary updates have not been made in time.
3) The form of the document is not suitable, for example, MSDS data is in English, but the field operators have insufficient ability to recognize English.
10. Operation Control
1) There are no specified standards in the operation control procedures, such as what national or local standards are not clearly implemented in the sewage/noise/exhaust control procedures, when and at what level;
2) Failure to inform suppliers of operational control requirements, such as chemical suppliers, engineering subcontractors, etc.
3) The main deficiencies of on-site environmental operation control:
a. Waste classification is not clearly stipulated, the implementation is not in place, there are recyclable, non-recyclable or hazardous waste mixing phenomenon;
b. The contamination caused by the leakage of mechanical oil on site has not been cleaned up and corrected in time.
c. Environmental protection facilities fail to provide evidence of maintenance;
d. The operation of environmental protection facilities is abnormal, for example, the exhaust gas extraction system in the workshop is not running or running, but there is no water in the purification tank at the exhaust port;
e. MSDS data are not available at the site of chemical use and storage.
f. Dust and debris are not collected, scattered everywhere and not cleaned up in time in the positions where dust and debris are produced (such as sand grinding, sawing machine, planer, lathe, etc.).
g. Flammable and explosive materials are mixed with other flammable materials, and dangerous goods are not stored in separate space.
h. The dosing record of sewage treatment station is not complete, and the dosage and time of dosing are not mastered.
i. The transfer and transfer of waste oil, waste liquid and other hazardous wastes are not recorded, and the final disposal of non-hazardous wastes is a joint list (the disposal of hazardous wastes must be handled by qualified institutions, and a unified joint list of disposal shall be issued when disposing of hazardous wastes).
11. Emergency preparedness and response
1) Failure to formulate corresponding emergency plans for potential important environmental factors, usually including fire emergency plans, chemical leakage/explosion emergency plans, environmental protection facilities failure emergency plans, natural disaster emergency plans;
2) Emergency plans/plans have been formulated, but no corresponding training and drills have been carried out.
3) There are emergency drills, but the effect of the drills and emergency procedures are evaluated.
4) After the implementation of the emergency plan or the drill, the emergency procedure has not been reviewed and revised in time.
12. Monitoring and measurement
1) The planning of monitoring and measurement is insufficient, and the items, methods and frequencies of monitoring and measurement that should be carried out are not determined.
2) No monitoring and measurement of the implementation of objectives, indicators and management programs;
3) Failure to provide monitoring records of daily operation and management processes;
4) The monitoring of noise, exhaust gas/dust and wastewater should be carried out at least once a year, usually entrusted to local environmental monitoring stations or other qualified environmental monitoring institutions.
5) Self-owned monitoring equipment is not regularly calibrated or verified, such as noise tester, sewage testing equipment, etc.
6) Sewage treatment stations fail to provide records of Sewage Monitoring and testing, or have monitoring but the frequency does not meet the requirements of the documents.
13. Compliance Evaluation
1) No "compliance evaluation control procedure" has been formed.
2) Failure to provide evidence for compliance evaluation, at least once a year;
3) Compliance evaluation of the implementation of environmental laws and regulations has been carried out, but no compliance evaluation of other requirements has been carried out.
4) Compliance evaluation fails to cover all applicable laws, regulations and other requirements.
14. Non-conformity, Corrective Measures And Preventive Measures
1) When environmental non-conformity occurs, it is not handled (corrected) in time;
2) The timing of taking corrective and preventive measures is not identified;
3) Failure to analyze the causes of non-conformity, inadequate implementation of corrective measures, and failure to achieve the purpose of recurrence prevention;
4) Failure to analyze the causes of potential non-conformity, inappropriate preventive measures, and failure to achieve the purpose of preventing occurrence;
5) The effect of corrective and preventive measures was not evaluated.
15. Internal Audit
1) Failure to plan the annual internal audit, such as stipulating in documents or forming an annual internal audit plan;
2) The audit contents listed in the internal audit plan fail to cover all the audit scope;
3) The arrangement of the members of the internal audit team lacks fairness, and there is a situation of auditing their own departments.
4) There are clear requirements for audit contents in the internal audit plan, but there are some missing clauses in the checklist.
5) The internal audit non-conformity report has been formed, but the cause analysis is not in place, and the corrective measures have not been formulated for the reasons, lacking pertinence;
6) The implementation effect of corrective measures taken for internal audit non-conformity has not been verified and evaluated.
7) No internal audit report has been formed;
8) There are internal audit reports, but the evaluation of the operation of the system only reflects inconsistencies and shortcomings, and the environmental performance achieved has not been evaluated.
16. Management Review
1) The evaluation contents in the management review plan are not complete, such as the lack of environmental performance evaluation, the implementation results of the follow-up measures of the last management review, the development and changes of laws, regulations and other requirements related to Organizational Environmental factors, etc.
2) Input information of management review is insufficient and lack of relevant information/evidence;
3) The output of management review fails to include decisions and actions related to the revision of environmental policies, objectives and other elements of environmental management system.
4) The management review report fails to reflect the evaluation results of suitability, adequacy and effectiveness of the system.
5) There are no clear responsibilities, division of labor and time limit requirements in the management review resolutions;
6) The implementation of follow-up measures of management review is not recorded and the results are not validated.
17. Record Control
1) Records can not be retrieved, no list, no catalogue or other retrieval methods;
2) The time limit for the preservation of records is not stipulated, and the records are not preserved as required by the time limit;
3) improper record keeping, loss, damage and other phenomena.
