Today's organizations operate in a highly competitive market, with customers becoming increasingly demanding not only regarding product quality but also their life cycle, recyclability for greater environmental sustainability, and the assurance of health and safety protection for individuals during work activities.
In this context, two standards are particularly relevant: ISO 14001:2015 "Environmental management systems – Requirements with guidance for use" and ISO 45001:2018 "Occupational health and safety management systems – Requirements with guidance for use," which can converge into an integrated system.
ISO 14001 is the international standard for implementing an environmental management system and outlines a model that organizations can follow to create an effective environmental system. ISO 45001 is very similar to ISO 14001 but focuses on managing occupational health and safety issues instead of environmental concerns. Adopting these standards together supports the design of improvement objectives, training programs, and control documents (work instructions, operating manuals, etc.) to manage the environment-safety system in an integrated manner.
An integrated system is simply a combination of management systems aimed at satisfying stakeholders in various aspects in a coordinated and balanced way. Integration should occur at three levels:
- Strategic
- Tactical
- Operational
Practically, the process begins by considering the common elements of the two management systems and aligning the respective documents. One can proceed by starting with the process approach, which presents a sequence of activities connected to transform process inputs into outputs with the help of support processes (such as logistics or maintenance) and under the umbrella of management processes such as defining strategies, policies, etc.
Each activity of the process should be studied based on two aspects: the environmental aspect and the health and safety aspect.
In particular, the parts that can be considered at an integrated level between ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 are those most similar between the two standards. Let's look at them:
- the scope
- the normative references
- the terminology
- the context of the organization
- the leadership regarding policy, the definition of roles, responsibilities, and authorities within the organization
- the planning
- the support regarding resources, competence, awareness, and communication
- the operational activities regarding planning and control and preparedness to respond to any emergencies
- the performance evaluation for monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation, internal audit, and management review
- the improvement for non-conformities and corrective actions and for continuous improvement
Among the advantages of an integrated system are:
- increased efficiency because fewer resources, less time, and lower costs are required to implement an integrated system;
- improved effectiveness because strategies and objectives tend to converge and be better calibrated to the overall needs of the company and customers as a whole;
- a decrease in documents because policies, procedures, manuals, instructions, and records, when possible, can be unified;
- unification of internal and external audits and improvement of the organization's image with customers
Implementing these two standards separately would cost more time and resources because many aspects are common and because there would be a risk of having redundant procedures.