The International Organization for Standardization requires rigorous standards testing before it awards the ISO 14001 certification.

ISO 14001 certification requires an organization to:

  • Establish a corporate environmental policy that makes strong commitments to the environment
  • Understand how activities, products and services interact with and impact the environment, and identify significant impacts
  • Set environmental objectives, targets and programs and manage them closely
  • Determine competency requirements for persons who have the potential to cause significant environmental impacts and ensure these requirements are met and records retained
  • Manage environmental documents and records to a high professional standard
  • Develop operational controls in areas that have significant environmental risks
  • Develop environmental emergency preparedness and response plans
  • Establish a range of feedback mechanisms to update management on environmental performance and effective functioning of the system