Mgt Systems

The new ISO14001:2015 standard was launched in the autumn of 2015 as a high level standard with the aim of fostering compatibility amount various management systems and to facilitate their integration and implementation, mainly towards ISO9001 on quality management and the forthcoming ISO45001 for occupational health and safety.

But this should not stop us from implementing the standard in our food safety management system such as ISO2200/FSSC, BRC, Food Safety, IFS Food or other food safety standards under the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) scheme.

ISO14001:2015 can easily go hand in hand and support each other in areas listed below:

  • Supply chain approach
  • Risk assessment
  • Planning
  • Competences and awareness
  • Communication and Customer focus

Benefits from having an integrated management system

As shown above there a number of areas where environmental management, quality and food & safety management goes hand in hand supporting each other and asking for an integrated approach with some of the benefits listed below:

  • Using the same methods for risk assessment and working in a supply chain context will increase the transparency and efficiency of the management systems at all levels.
  • An integrated approach results in better overview of company activities and their interdependence, reduces the resource for maintenance of two or more systems and last but not least avoid conflicting initiatives when planning new activities.
  • An integrated system can also be used as a structured approach towards the sustainability agenda working with suppliers and partners in securing high quality and reducing the environmental impact within the supply chain.

For more information

You can read more about this in our recent paper on Environmental Management in Food Safety Context. A non-certified cross reference between ISO14001:2015 and BRC, IFS and ISO2200 are available here.