By Andrew Marlow

A major change affecting all management system standards (such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and ISO 45001) occurred quietly on February 23, 2024. This will dramatically change the way your management system operates.

This article looks at the background to this major change, which was brought about by the London Declaration made in 2021. It has taken until now to bring about this big shake up to all management system standards.

What is the London Declaration?

In 2021, at a meeting of ISO in the United Kingdom hosted by BSI, there was a move to give further support to governments, industries, and organizations in reaching Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050 as part of the Paris Agreement.

BSI and ISO committed to incorporating climate science into the creation of new standards and the revision of existing ones.

This commitment to countering the effects of climate change, supporting the Paris Agreement and its Net Zero agenda, is called the London Declaration.

The London Declaration builds on the foundations created by the Paris Agreement by incorporating action into the heart of standards development.

What does this mean for your management system?

Before I explain what this means for your management system, I will present the ISO standard number and title for all 31 affected management system standards:

As an important part of implementing the London Declaration, ISO passed a resolution that will result in two new statements of text being added to all existing Type A management system standards and which will also be included in all new standards under development/revision. These statements are intended to address the need to consider the effect of climate change on the ability to achieve the intended results of the management system. The changes will be introduced initially as amendments to these published management system standards.

What are the climate change amendments?

An ISO and International Accreditation Forum (IAF) Joint Communiqué on the addition of climate change considerations to management systems standards explains that there are two amendments (called “statements” by ISO) that have been added to all Type A management system standards (essentially all those which have requirements). This introduces one new requirement and a clarification in a note to the original requirement.

The first amendment is made to Clause 4.1, entitled “Understanding the organization and its context,” where the original requirement was that “The organization shall determine external and internal issues that are relevant to its purpose and that affect its ability to achieve the intended result(s) of its XXX management system.” The “XXX” denotes the type of management system, such as “quality,” “environmental,” or “occupational health and safety.”

The new requirement is added after the above requirement and reads:

“The organization shall determine whether climate change is a relevant issue,” as seen below:

The second amendment is found in Clause 4.2, entitled “Understanding the needs and expectations of interested parties,” where the original requirement read as follows:

“The organization shall determine:

• the interested parties that are relevant to the XXX management system.
• the relevant requirements of these interested parties.
• which of these requirements will be addressed through the XXX management system.¨

A new note is added after the above requirement and reads:

“NOTE: Relevant interested parties can have requirements related to climate change,” as seen below:

The IAF & ISO Joint Communiqué makes clear that the intent is to ensure that climate change issues are considered by the organization in the context of the effectiveness of the management system, in addition to all other issues. These additional statements in each management system standard are meant to ensure that this important topic is not overlooked but considered by all organizations in the design and implementation of the management system.

The overall intent of the requirements for Clauses 4.1 and 4.2 remain unchanged; these clauses already included the need for the organization to consider all internal and external issues that can affect the effectiveness of their management system. These new inclusions help ensure that climate change is considered within the management system and that it is an external factor that is important enough to the community for organizations to be required to consider it now.

It should be obvious but necessary to recognize that climate change can have a different effect on each management system component; for example, the effect on a quality management system could be very different to that on a health and safety management system.

It is not the intention of the changes to (for example) turn a health and safety management system audit or a road traffic safety management system audit into one that disproportionality considers climate change, though this does not of course understate the importance of climate change.

An ISO article entitled “Deploying ISO’s London Declaration to Climate Action via Management System Standards” is available from their website, which goes into further detail.

Where can I get the amendment standards?

Any organization using any of these management system standards will want to get a copy of the relevant amendment standard to ensure that they have the up-to-date standards within their documented management system, whether it is for a quality management system, occupational health and safety system, environmental management system, or any of the other management system standards.

The amendment standards for all the Type A management system standards are available from the ISO website and are available for free download subject to opening a free account with ISO.

This article first appeared on the EMS Mastery website and is published here with permission.