ISO 14001 Environmental management systems

Environmental protection has become a critical issue worldwide. The ISO 14000 series starts from the concept of business life cycle assessment and leads to support environmental protection and prevention of pollution at every stage of production, distribution, sale, consumption and disposal. These international standards are voluntary standards. The aim is to make compliance with environmental laws and regulations a basic minimum performance standard for organizations. To meet the customers' demands, TÜV Rheinland can provide multilingual ISO 14001 certifications. For the certification according to ISO 14001, the implementation of the local environment regulations is a key aspect. ISO 14001 certificates are therefore often required both by Chinese and foreign enterprise. TÜV Rheinland is the first global certification body that can offer ISO 14001 certification in China under CACEB accreditation.

Also the publication of new ISO 14001:2004 standard revision aims to clarify definitions and objectives in the text of the standard. Furthermore, in light of the ISO 9001 revisions, it was decided that both ISO 14001 and ISO 14004 needed to be made more compatible with ISO 9001: 2000. To remain consistent with the revisions of ISO 14001, the ISO 14004 text was also clarified.

The preparation of the final draft international standard (FDIS) should be published at the beginning of September 2004. The FDIS vote should be completed by mid-November and, if there are no important changes, ISO 14001: 2004 will be published before the end of December 2004.