Does an internal auditor have to have been training in auditing ISO 14001?

The reason I am asking is due to personnel leaving the company we are very thin on the ground of trained ISO 14001 auditors. Whilst we will address this issue in the mean time would it be acceptable for our auditors who are trained for TS16949 to carryout internal environmental audits?

Thank you.

Nette

Does an internal auditor have to have been training in auditing ISO 14001?

The reason I am asking is due to personnel leaving the company we are very thin on the ground of trained ISO 14001 auditors. Whilst we will address this issue in the mean time would it be acceptable for our auditors who are trained for TS16949 to carryout internal environmental audits?

Thank you.

Nette


I would expect that the next person that would be performing the Internal Audits would have some understanding of 14001 and Auditing techniques.

Do the procedures, of your company, require them to take an "official" training class for internal auditing?

Does an internal auditor have to have been training in auditing ISO 14001?

The reason I am asking is due to personnel leaving the company we are very thin on the ground of trained ISO 14001 auditors. Whilst we will address this issue in the mean time would it be acceptable for our auditors who are trained for TS16949 to carryout internal environmental audits?

Thank you.

Nette

I think that if the person is trained to audit ISO/TS16949 and has knowledge about the requirements of ISO14001, then they should be able to audit. You have requirements, procedures, targets, reports, results, etc. If you have an internal procedure that specifies specific training to ISO14001, then you may want to ammend it to allow temporary auditors. But, I think this should only be temporary until you can get them trained to ISO14001 internal auditing. Or if you have others who are trained to audit ISO14001 then have the TS16949 auditor audit accompany with them as part of their training.:2cents:

No our procedure does not state that they have to be trained to audit ISO 14001.

Guess that I am just being careful.

I like the idea of getting the TS16949 auditors to go with the ISO 14001 auditors as part of their training.

Thank you. :thanx:

No our procedure does not state that they have to be trained to audit ISO 14001.

Guess that I am just being careful.

I like the idea of getting the TS16949 auditors to go with the ISO 14001 auditors as part of their training.

Thank you. :thanx:

If it works for you, great!

I'd say go for it except for one very tiny, inconsequential item. Unless they are trained and are aware of requirements how can you show their competence?

The effectiveness of your audits may be a good KPI, but how are they to understand the importance of significant aspects and their relationship to multiple elements of the standard unless they are trained and follow the trail?

Wouldn't it be nice if they actually had some knowledge of the relationship of 4.4.2 and 4.4.7 and why they are important and tied together?

Wouldn't it beneficial for them to be able to follow the regulatory compliance process from 4.2 to 4.3.2 to 4.4.2 to 4.4.3 to 4.4.6 to 4.5.1 to 4.5.2.1 to 4.6 and possibly as they apply 4.3.1, 4.4.1, 4.4.4, 4.4.5, & 4.5.4 to assess its effectiveness?

These are just a couple of those wee issues.

No our procedure does not state that they have to be trained to audit ISO 14001.

Guess that I am just being careful.

I like the idea of getting the TS16949 auditors to go with the ISO 14001 auditors as part of their training.

Thank you. :thanx:


Regardless of what your procedure does or does not state, the standard requires them to be competent. Randy makes some very good points in his reply.

I'll reciprocate and thank you in return:thanx:

I've found out and hammer home in my training courses that competence goes beyond the folks in production, it extends to "ALL" who can impact customer satisfaction/product quality, the environmental performance, or effect risk within respective systems.

Folks that need to have competence relevant to their "Roles" that are any times overlooked include:

Top Management
Management Reps
Personnel who review and approve system documents (technical competence in subject matter)
Personnel who deliver training
Auditors
Personnel who peform maintenance
Personnel involved in calibration
Pesonnel involved in all aspects of Product Realization
Personnel who perform regulatory compliance evaluation
Personel involved in risk assessment
Personnel who manage any activity within the scope of the respective MS
and possibly others.

Technical competence in subject matter, yes definitely. :applause:

The thing about auditing to ISO 14001 is understanding the aspects' potential impact on the environment, and through that the impact on life forms like humans.

A rudimentary competency in chemistry, safety, HAZMAT, and/or industrial hygiene can help. There are books, but workplace training and experience with chemicals and their handling has helped me to make a decent showing of myself. I'm not in any means expert enough to manage such a program on my own, but I know what I am looking at. An auditor ought to.

Why don't you check and see if your local government offers, or can guide you to a path for HAZMAT handling? The U.S. Department of Transportation has a special certificate for trucking HAZMAT, and relative training is available to achieve such permission to transport the materials. Maybe you can find a fairly expedient path to the knowledge you'd arguably need for ISO 14001 auditing to be done well.

Dear Friend,

If you have established an EMS according to ISO-14001, then I would expect that the internal audit is conducted by auditors qualified to conduct the internal audit (as per qualifications prescribed in ISO-19011) according to ISO-19011. A certification body is supposed to seek objective evidence of (a) competence, experience, training and independence of auditors (e.g. including any reference to ISO 19011and/or to programmes for the registration of audit personnel);(b) auditing procedure and methodology, in particular the extent of the audit (e.g.including any reference to ISO 19011) and (c) references and standards (e.g. ISO 19011) (Text in Italics is adapted from IAF FG 66_2) during the Stage II Certification audit of the organization. If the auditors carrying out the internal audit are not qualified as given above, you may run the risk of certification auditor questioning the validity of the internal audit. Since internal audits can be carried out by "external" qualified auditors, I would, in a situation like yours, invite qualified auditors from outside the organization to conduct the "internal" ISO-14001 audit. I have been practicing this for the last eight years as I do not have any qualified ISO-14001 auditor to carry out internal audit of my ISO-14001 certified organizations (2 persons and 10 person organizations).

With best regards,

Ramakrishnan

I'd say go for it except for one very tiny, inconsequential item. Unless they are trained and are aware of requirements how can you show their competence?

The effectiveness of your audits may be a good KPI, but how are they to understand the importance of significant aspects and their relationship to multiple elements of the standard unless they are trained and follow the trail?

Wouldn't it be nice if they actually had some knowledge of the relationship of 4.4.2 and 4.4.7 and why they are important and tied together?

Wouldn't it beneficial for them to be able to follow the regulatory compliance process from 4.2 to 4.3.2 to 4.4.2 to 4.4.3 to 4.4.6 to 4.5.1 to 4.5.2.2 to 4.6 and possibly as they apply 4.3.1, 4.4.1, 4.4.4, 4.4.5, & 4.5.4 to assess its effectiveness?

These are just a couple of those wee issues.

Well, you sure lost me there :o

Lost me too.

Our environmental management system is well established, has been upgraded to ISO 14001:2004, has been externally audited and certified for the new version and has been internally audited many times.

We have not made any changes within the business that effect our documented procedures and processes. Therefore, it they know how to audit then surely they should be able to audit procedures and processes?

Don't know could be totally wrong.

I think what Randy is trying to say is that being an auditor and being trained on ISO 14001 will simply make the auditor dangerous........They should be competent in the requirements (of ISO 14001, regulatory and organizational)and their application to your business.

For example, if you have significant environmental aspects and impacts and are bounded by severe regulations, then it would be a more onerous task to audit those related requirements. It's not that they can't audit, but they have to be aware of what they're 'looking at'.........

However, if your product and processes are relatively 'benign' - environmentally speaking - then it might be O.K for a more 'enlightened auditor to look after the ISO 14001 requirements.

Did I get it, Randy?;)

Andy

More or less Andy...part of my post said that evidence of competence could be the effectiveness of the audit and the results that are achieved.

My use of all the clauses (Nette-that's what all those numbers were by the way if you didn't know) was a way to illustrate the "Process Approach" and how the requirements of ISO 14001 are interconnected and linked...something a "competent" auditor would and should know. Knowledge of requirements and process linkage makes an auditor better and more able to provide a value added result as opposed to just asking mundane and idiot questions like "What - is - the - policy?" over and over again.

Bottom line, do whatever you want and what you think is most effective for you.

More or less Andy...part of my post said that evidence of competence could be the effectiveness of the audit and the results that are achieved.

My use of all the clauses (Nette-that's what all those numbers were by the way if you didn't know) was a way to illustrate the "Process Approach" and how the requirements of ISO 14001 are interconnected and linked...something a "competent" auditor would and should know. Knowledge of requirements and process linkage makes an auditor better and more able to provide a value added result as opposed to just asking mundane and idiot questions like "What - is - the - policy?" over and over again.

Bottom line, do whatever you want and what you think is most effective for you.

I'd sure like to see some of your audit checklists and reports some day.:o
No doubt in my mind: I could seriously learn something from the pro's :-) I've always tried to asses the effectiveness, and see whether procedures were indicating the correct process, but I do find this process approach difficult....

The process approach is as easy as it gets. Input/activity/output, 1-2-3.

Gert, an easy way for me to wrap my head around the concept of process auditing (be it 9001, 14001 or 18001 or even ISRS to some degree), was to create a matrix showing all of our processes along one access and all of the elements/clauses along the other. I then plugged in the level of relationship between the two (D - direct / S - support / NA - not applicable). This way, I have a good starting point for my scope and focus during an audit.

On the 14001 side, I hesitate to say that the internal auditors need to follow the guidelines of 19011. For some organizations, that just is not a practical solution to this fix. An organization needs to establish their own auditor competency requirements...but the key word is competency. Auditing ISO 14001 goes beyond merely auditing documentation and processes. An auditor needs to evaluate the effectiveness of the system and if the standard isn't understood, if the environmental system isn't understood, then the whole audit has just lost its meaning. (IMHO)

Do they need to be trained on ISO 14001? Yes. It's the only way that their findings will be of value to the organization.

Toss in the fact that if they don't understand their standard and the questions and the processes, what happens when should an auditee say "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're asking"? If the auditor can not restate the question, everyone (including the auditor) questions the value of this experience.

I'd sure like to see some of your audit checklists and reports some day.:o
No doubt in my mind: I could seriously learn something from the pro's :-) I've always tried to asses the effectiveness, and see whether procedures were indicating the correct process, but I do find this process approach difficult....


...the first thing to learn is the process approach is not all about the procedures anymore. They play a role, but I don't look at a lot of procedures, unless we need them to clarify some confusion about the particular process.