1. Introduction to ISO 14001

1.1 Why ISO 14001?

The ISO 14000 family of standards, validated by ISO, provides a proactive approach to managing environmental issues within an organization, taking into account risk management, good governance and sound operational and financial practices.

The organization of this family of standards is based on that of the ISO 9000 series (relating to quality management). Its main components are :

• ISO 14000, which defines the vocabulary applied to all environmental management systems;

• ISO 14001, which defines the requirements for an environmental management system (EMS);

• ISO 14004, which complements ISO 14001 by providing useful guidelines...