ISO 14000 Family of Standards

The brochure reviews
the 14000 family of standards which provide environmental and economic benefits, including:

Reduced raw material or resource use
Reduced energy consumption
Improved process efficiency
Reduced waste generation and disposal costs
Utilization of recoverable resources

ISO 14000 is a series of standards developed by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to address Environmental Management, or what you do to:

Minimize your negative impact on the environment
Continually improve your environmental performance
View complete list of ISO 14000 Standards

ISO 14000 environmental standards help organizations manage their environmental requirements and tie them into their overall business objectives. They fall into six categories (click for details):

Environmental management systems
- ISO 14001:2004 -The requirements of an EMS
- ISO 14004:2004 -EMS Guidelines
- ISO 14005:2010 -Phased EMS approach Guidance
Environmental auditing
- ISO 19011:2011 -auditing requirements of an EMS
Environmental performance evaluation
- ISO 14064:2006 - Greenhouse gas measurement
Environmental labeling
Life-cycle assessment
Environmental aspects in product standards

NOTE: Organizations do not register to ISO 14000 as a series, they ONLY register to ISO 14001:2004. The other documents will help an organization implement an EMS, audit properly, etc.

Within each category, there are two types of ISO 14000 standards:

Requirements Standards - detailing the steps that must be taken to meet the standard. Companies only register to the requirements standards

The most common are:
- ISO 14001:2004 - Environmental Management Systems - Requirements with guidance for use
- ISO 14065:2007 - Greenhouse Gases -- Requirements for Greenhouse Gas Validation and Verification Bodies

Guidance Standards - are descriptive documents intended to provide guidance only.

All of the ISO 14000 series of generic standards (from ISO 14004 to ISO 14064) are guidance standards.
These are recommended for organizations interested in ISO 14000:
- ISO 14004:2004-Environmental management systems - General guidelines on principles, systems and support techniques.
- ISO 19011:2011-Guidelines for quality and/or environmental management systems auditing.
- ISO 14064:2006- Greenhouse Gas Reporting

Note: Depending on the nature of the business that organizations are involved in, some of the other standards listed may apply