ISO 14001 External Communication Requirements

[Randy]

Formally you can say NO but I thing that third party auditor have to decide if the decision is acceptable (If some company is known in public as critical for the environment, decision NO is for me unacceptable and I will give nonconformity).

Well I am a 3rd party auditor and I cannot say that a decision is acceptable or not and your nonconformity would be tossed out if it was presented to me as a Lead. I can ask why and maybe talk about it a bit, but to go any further might be crossing that line I cannot cross. Man-oh- man I can see it now...."You made an unacceptable decision"...."Really? An unacceptable decision? You can get out of my building!"

Here's the deal, and regardless of what others may say, the decision of what is or not is significant is the sole property of the organization just as the decision to communicate them externally is. Now y'all seem to be having a slight problem with the basics of what is an aspect, what is an impact, how significance is to be determined and what to do with the results of the whole process. Guy's, SA's don't have to be reduced, eliminated, have objectives against them, nothing, they only have to be considered for stuff, controlled, monitored-measured, and internal people made aware of them but you don't have to make them go away.

Have you never heard of a positive environmental impact, or of a positive significant aspect? They exist.....

Going back to the subject here....Suppose my facility identifies electrical consumption as a significant aspect...Who's business is that and who are you to tell me that I have to tell you how much electricity I use? You payin' my bill or something this month? I couldn't care less how interested you are. I identified it, I'm gonna control it, I'm gonna monitor and measure it and all the information will be provided to my management (me) to decide what to do if anything.

 

[Marty50]

Now that's interesting. If you take the plain or literal meaning as you do in statutory interpretation.

" The organization shall decide whether to communicate externally about its significant environmental aspects, and shall document its decision".

The word "shall" means you must.

"Document" means it is recorded somehow.

And "decision" is you decided YES or NO.

It doesnt say you have to give reasons for that decision or tell anyone why?

So surely you would have to at least show a 3rd party auditor that you recorded whatever you chose to do, but without having to give any reason ?

 

[automoto]

Going back to the subject here....Suppose my facility identifies electrical consumption as a significant aspect...Who's business is that and who are you to tell me that I have to tell you how much electricity I use? You payin' my bill or something this month? I couldn't care less how interested you are. I identified it, I'm gonna control it, I'm gonna monitor and measure it and all the information will be provided to my management (me) to decide what to do if anything.

One more comment

Electrical consumption can be other's business. Have you ever hear about indirect environmental aspects. Company which produce electricity use for these some sources and cause some emissions (CO2…). So if your consumption is not efficiency you indirectly cause additional emissions…

Aleš

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Guy's, SA's don't have to be reduced, eliminated, have objectives against them, nothing, they only have to be considered for stuff, controlled, monitored-measured, and internal people made aware of them but you don't have to make them go away.

This week I am in Portland attending the US TAG meeting to ISO PC242, deliberating on the CD document for ISO 50001. Yesterday, during some of the introductions, some people expressed the need for this standard (ISO 50001) to be data driven and as much as possible, have a strong performance component built in, differently from the typical management system standards out there, such as ISO 14001, ISO 9001, etc, which do not mandate minimum levels of performance, just continual improvement...

Some of the people working in this group seem disenchanted with the traditional standards that don't really keep the organization accountable to sustainable performance.

As we all know, many organizations attain certification to standards just as a marketing ploy. There are serious attempts to make the certification process meaningful to stakeholders, but we need CB's that are willing to raise to the occasion and deny certification to undeserving organizations. Otherwise, little will change in the world of management system certifications. Systems that don't perform and certificates that don't provide any confidence.

 

[MsHeeler]

I have a somewhat related question:

Part of 4.4.3 Communications states " The organization shall decide whether to communicate externally about its significant environmental aspects, and shall document its decision". Literally, are we required to show some document showing our decision not to communicate a certain aspect?

Thanks a lot!

Easy fix, discuss it, and document it in the Management Review.

MsHeeler

 

[MIREGMGR]

"...shall document its decision" is a potential time bomb for US companies, in the event that their environmental performance becomes a subject of federal or state legal action. Such a record will be revealed during discovery (the legally required exposure of most or all of the company's records to review by the prosecutors), and could be used as evidence that whatever decision, action or inaction is being questioned was the result of a coordinated action among multiple individuals.

In such a circumstance, if the prosecution is able to establish that a law has been violated, they may be able to show conspiracy and/or individual blame.

I'm not a lawyer, but I would suggest that any US company of any substance, before determining their compliance path for ISO 14001 in regard to compliance statements as above, should have their corporate counsel or outside attorney involved in exactly what is documented, including the specific language that is used.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

"...shall document its decision" is a potential time bomb for US companies, in the event that their environmental performance becomes a subject of federal or state legal action. Such a record will be revealed during discovery (the legally required exposure of most or all of the company's records to review by the prosecutors), and could be used as evidence that whatever decision, action or inaction is being questioned was the result of a coordinated action among multiple individuals.

In such a circumstance, if the prosecution is able to establish that a law has been violated, they may be able to show conspiracy and/or individual blame.

I'm not a lawyer, but I would suggest that any US company of any substance, before determining their compliance path for ISO 14001 in regard to compliance statements as above, should have their corporate counsel or outside attorney involved in exactly what is documented, including the specific language that is used.

In the US, anything you do (or not do) can be used against you in a legal proceeding. In case of litigation, the fact that an organization has been proactive and implemented an EMS, instead of a simple reactionary approach of mere regulatory compliance, is perceived as a positive and it tends to bring goodwill to the defendants, especially if there is evidence to the fact that the EMS was implemented and maintained in order to improve environmental performance and not only attain a meaningless certificate.

 

[MIREGMGR]

(...) the fact that an organization has been proactive and implemented an EMS, instead of a simple reactionary approach of mere regulatory compliance, is perceived as a positive and it tends to bring goodwill to the defendants (...)

Heh. I agree with a lot of your perspectives, Sidney, but the above hasn't been my experience. US courts only know what is introduced as evidence, and prosecutions will introduce as evidence only the bits and pieces of information that are specifically relevant to their task of proving failure to comply with the law. Defense introduction of a proactively implemented EMS as exculpatory or as establishing innocence of intent may even not be permitted, if it does not directly contradict the prosecution's evidentiary snippets from your records.

There's actually some justicial logic to this. We all know of companies that have pretty certificates they purchased for their lobby, while they do bad things out back. It would be undesirable for those pretty lobby-certificates to actually shield them from legal liability for doing bad stuff. And, we could hardly expect the court system to be able to distinguish a sincerely approached compliance effort from a purchased-certificate approach.

I appreciate that your stance is that I'm wrong, but my advice would continue to be that the specific records you create should be considered as to how they could be misconstrued and what they might be deemed to evidentiate, absent their proper context, because they could be used that way.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

I appreciate that your stance is that I'm wrong, but my advice would continue to be that the specific records you create should be considered as to how they could be misconstrued and what they might be deemed to evidentiate, absent their proper context, because they could be used that way.

I DON'T think you are wrong. You are correct about the potential legal implications of evidence around the decision to externally communicate (or not) on SA's. My point is that, besides that, everything surrounding an EMS has potential legal implications as well. For example, if an internal auditor finds a regulatory non-compliance (or something s/he believes is a regulatory non-compliance), how/if to report it?

I am just concerned that, if every single aspect of an EMS is a potential legal concern that would require legal review, the analysis paralysis scenario would soon set in.

I don't have legal background either, but it seems to me that prosecution and defense will always battle about what is admissible and relevant for the case. While a prosecutor might not want to allow the fact that an organization had an EMS in place, the defense would want to bring that fact to life, during the deliberation. I believe that it would be up to the judge to decide.

You make excellent points, but some might think, after reading your comment, that implementing an ISO 14001 EMS is a legal liability. I believe that implementation of an EMS reduces legal risk exposure of organizations. Actually, the business world is full of cases where organizations were MANDATED to implement EMS's as a result of a legal cases. Some were even mandated to attain certification.:mg:

 

[jasonb067]

I know this is an old thread but I have been asked to help review our EMS as a part of peer review.

Now, for external communication I do not see how any organization which is being certified to ISO 14001 can say no, we will not externally communicate. If we do say that then we could not show the auditor anything regarding our policy including measurements of comsumption etc. Is this not correct?

So, if I get past the fact that yes, we are going to sometimes have external communication I will need to document in our procedure that, "organization will evaluate on a case by case basis the request for information and commuincate the results of that evaluation to requestor". Then I am done with this portion of the requirement?