QMS & EMS London

The revised standard for environmental management systems, ISO 14001: 2015, was published on 15 September. The international standard was first published in 1996 and the latest version replaces the 2004 edition. About 300,000 organisations around the world are certified to 14001, including nearly 16,000 in the UK. ISO said the latest revisions aimed to ensure 14001 remained relevant and that the changes responded to the latest trends, such as an increasing recognition by companies of the need to factor in external and internal elements that influence their impact, including climate volatility.

Computers were meant to make our lives easier. We now have access to environmental surveys, energy use predictions, ESOS (energy savings opportunity scheme) audits, carbon reporting data, waste management records and demolition surveys on the computer rather than on paper. This should mean that we can reach the information we need at the click of a button. However, although the 30-year-old operations manual, safely stored in its ring binder, still exists in some organisations, it is often a struggle to find those electronic files that were emailed over the previous year. And, if another employee edits the Excel file in which you were compiling your energy stats, how can you be sure which version contains the most up-to-date information?

Whether the new international standard for environmental management systems, ISO 14001:2015, strengthens the links between the EMS and organisational strategy, more effectively engages leaders and ensures environmental aspects are related to business risks and opportunities will largely depend on the quality of the internal and external audits.

Whether the new international standard for environmental management systems, ISO 14001:2015, strengthens the links between the EMS and organisational strategy, more effectively engages leaders and ensures environmental aspects are related to business risks and opportunities will largely depend on the quality of the internal and external audits. Due to be published in September, 14001:2015 is different from the previous version (2004) in several ways and these will challenge the competence of many auditors. The new section on organisational context will require assessors to develop a broader knowledge of the organisation they are auditing and the industry or sector in which they operate.

Organisations need to "futureproof" their operations against changes in demographics, climate change, resources and technology, according to business leaders. Business in the Community (BitC) has launched a project to help organisations identify potential problems arising from global megatrends and make plans to avoid them. As part of the project, BitC will provide mentoring and access to sustainability experts.

The country ballot on the DIS in November 2014 showed 92% of ISO member bodies supported moving to the next stage. The step was for the working group to consider comments on the DIS made during the consultation period, which ended in October. Key issues covered in the six-day meeting in Tokyo were the clause relating to ‘risks associated with threats and opportunities’ and the term ‘compliance obligations’.

The clause in 14001: 2015 to understand the organisation and its context will require high-level understanding of the important internal and external issues that can affect an organisation’s environmental management system (EMS). A workshop approach to increase cross-functional understanding and input from across the organisation would be one way to ensure this requirement helps improve the effectiveness of the EMS. But an EMS tends to be the exclusive domain of only one or two people, disconnecting it from the rest of the business and, with the exception of environmental issues, what is happening in the outside world. As a result, the system often lacks exposure to “big picture issues”, which have the potential to seriously affect, negatively or positively, the ongoing success of the EMS and the business itself. Examples of such issues include a possible change in government, a changing workforce or future restrictions on accessing critical substances. Such issues coul...

tizzards Hazardous Substances New Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) Regulations come into force in Great Britain on 1 June 2015, implementing the Seveso III Directive (see panel, above). The main COMAH duties will stay the same but there are some important changes particularly on how dangerous substances are classified and the information made available to the public. For the first time, lower-tier operators will have to provide public information about their site and its hazards. Both top-tier (now referred to as upper-tier) and lower-tier operators will need to provide public information electronically and keep it up to date. The Health and Safety Executive is due to publish new guidance in March. The land use planning requirements of Seveso III will be implemented through amended planning legislation by the communities and local government department and the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales.

jdphotopdx A general election year makes it difficult to provide a comprehensive outlook for imminent policy changes. Whichever party or parties forms the UK government after 7 May will have their own priorities for sustainability, some of which are unlikely to become clear until ministers take office. As the actions of the new European commission have shown through its plans to withdraw new waste targets, policy trajectories set by the previous administration often fall foul of a new set of priorities. Whatever the political complexion of the next government, there are, nonetheless, a number of major legal and policy measures at both a national and EU level planned for 2015. With the support of IEMA and the EEF, the environmentalist has collated some of the most important regulatory and policy changes to look out for over the next 12 months.

Pit your wits against colleagues on important environmental developments in 2014.

The Going Green Working Group – part of the British Psychological Society – recently conducted a survey of sustainability professionals. It found that an emerging issue, one that is highly challenging both now and in the future, is the integration of sustainability into core business. Psychology focuses on factors that influence an individual’s behaviour, either the individual alone or as part of a group. It is individual change that can achieve social, economic and environmental sustainability, ultimately embedding these into the core strategy of organisations.

It is a common process-improvement scenario: After a project team or a work group is formed, members have a series of productive meetings and workshops, but then nothing happens. How many times has it felt like there are great team dynamics in the conference room but when it comes time to execute change, no one acts? What drives these disconnects? Many people want to attribute these failures (and they are failures) to the quality methodologies used. It is not uncommon to hear, for example, that Six Sigma is too complex or that Lean works best in production environments. For every method there is an excuse. But the failures transcend industry, culture, education and reward structure. What is more frustrating about this “almost engaged,” “almost empowered” phenomenon is that the people participating believe, during the workshops, that they are doing everything right. They believe they are highly engaged and most outsiders would look in and agree.

The largest study of theatre cancellations was performed in 2006 at 123 VHA facilities with 9 surgical specialties. Of 329,784 cases, 12.4% were canceled, and investigators assigned cancellations to 1 of 6 broad categories of cancellation reasons (Table 3). These 6 cancellation categories are similar to another study, which grouped cancellations into: (1) patient; (2) capacity constraints; (3) work-up; and (4) required specialized personnel unavailable. Unless a predetermined and accepted classification system is used prospectively, cancellation data obtained from administrative databases may not provide enough meaningful explanation to understand root causes.

How well a surgical suite runs depends on whom you ask. Nurses working in the operating theatre may understand efficiency as individual knowledge and experience applicable to the care of the patient as well as preventing problems before they occur, whereas managers understand efficiency in terms of production per unit of time or completing assignments as planned. The hospital administrator may want the highest "throughput" of cases with the least total cost, and the surgeon often wants first-case-of-the-day block time, rapid turnover, a low cancellation rate, and cases that start on time.

From early in their careers auditors are taught that it is not the person but the process they are interested in. However, this approach does little to allay auditees’ concerns and audits continue to be perceived, at best, as a mild imposition and, at worst, a tortuous interrogation.  The technical aspects of conducting an environment audit are well defined, most notably by ISO 19011. It is often, however, the more intangible elements of human and social interaction that influence the quality and outcomes of an audit. Consequently, building rapport is a key skill for an auditor and an open dialogue needs to be established early in the process. 

A leading environmental services company provides collection, processing, recycling and disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous materials for industrial and automotive customers. The company has branches all over the United States. The service representatives in these branches carry out services for geographically dispersed customers in their respective territories.

The first part of this series looked at what organisational culture is, how to spot it and why it is significant to successfully meeting organisational sustainability goals. So how can the existing culture be harnessed to help achieve such targets? Textbook definitions of organisational culture tend to be generic, and it can be hard to properly understand it without examples.

The public consultation on the revised version of the international standard for environmental management systems (EMS) is now open. First published in 1996, ISO 14001 was revised in 2004. The current revision is part of the ISO review cycle for standards and will lead to the publication of the third edition in 2015.

This article is the fourth installment of a six-part series ( I , II & III ) on common business challenges and the quality management system (QMS) tools (e.g., corrective action, document control) that can help alleviate those challenges. In this article we'll discuss something that affects all industries at some point or another—the complaint.

If efficiency is the economic use of human, psychological, and material resources, what is effectiveness? Go ahead and think about it. I'll wait… Like many of you, I find the online Business Dictionary to be a useful resource. Here’s how they define effectiveness: The degree to which objectives are achieved and the extent to which targeted problems are solved. In contrast to efficiency, effectiveness is determined without reference to costs and, whereas efficiency means “doing the thing right,” effectiveness means “doing the right thing.”