In February 2024, ISO amended 31 existing management standards to reflect its climate action commitments.
This article explores the changes to the standards, the requirements for conformity, and the implications of climate change.
What is changing?
The standards that are changing include ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 22000, ISO 22301, ISO 27001, ISO 45001, ISO 50001, and others. The following two amendments have been added to all of them.
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Subclause 4.1 (Understanding the organization and its context):
The organization shall determine whether climate change is a relevant issue.
- Subclause 4.2 (Stakeholder requirements): Relevant interested parties can have requirements related to climate change.
These amendments are intended to increase organizations' resilience to climate related disruptions. While they do not prescribe specific actions, they require organizations to integrate climate change considerations into their strategic objectives, risk management, and planning processes.
The relevance of these amendments can differ for each organization and depends on factors such as:
- Industry
- Scale
- Geographical location
- Nature of products or services offered
- Role in the supply chain
How can organizations comply with the updated standards?
Certified organizations must demonstrate:
- Evaluation of the relevance of climate change to the organization and stakeholders
- Consideration of the issue as relevant within their management system
Evidence of implementation includes:
- Climate risk assessment
- Engagement with stakeholders and identification of needs
- Findings integrated into management system
What are the implications of climate change?
Climate change has both direct impacts, such as changing weather patterns, and indirect impacts, such as technological and market changes, and changes to regulatory requirements.
Risks associated with climate change include:
- Vulnerability of buildings, operating systems, equipment, processes, and IT infrastructure in extreme weather conditions
- Disruptions in the supply chain
- Lack of access to resources, including raw materials
- Impacts on availability, productivity, and health and safety in the workplace
- Non-compliance with evolving regulations
Despite these changes, climate change is creating new opportunities for organizations as consumers and investors increasingly demand low carbon and climate resilient products and services.
How can we help?
We have extensive experience assessing conformance to ISO and other standards on issues relating to climate change and sustainability.
Climate change is one of the pillars of our IMPACT NOW for sustainability initiative, which drives businesses toward meaningful change, helping them to meet rising regulatory and stakeholder expectations.
For further information, please contact:
Dora Mindakis
Sustainability Commercial and Account Manager
t: +61483334647
