The 3 big ISO standards are now under revision. ISO 14001, 45001 and 9001 are being reviewed and revised simultaneously.  Recently, ECSI attended meetings of the US Technical Advisory Groups (TAG) for both ISO 14001, and 9001 in Washington DC where the upcoming revisions were discussed. We have also been participating in the US TAG to ISO 45001 and in meetings discussing revisions to that standard.

The revised standards will be released in a few years when organizations will be need to conform with the revisions. The following is a brief discussion of what to expect for revisions to each standard.

ISO 14001

ISO 14001 was first published in 1996.  Since then, it has been revised twice. Once in 2004 and again in 2015.  The 2015 revision incorporated a major change. This change involved converting the entire standard to the ISO High Level Structure (HLS).  Although the revision will not introduce new requirements, it may make changes to clarify some of the key requirements such as the relationship between risk and opportunity and significant environmental aspects.

The revision will integrate changes to the HLS and address concerns raised by users of the standard over the past 9 years.   Initially the ISO 14001 revision committee considered issuing an amendment with the few HLS changes.  The committee thought that this would be easier and take less time than a full revision.  The committee was also concerned about opening the standard up to a broader revision that could result in additional requirements.

Recently however, the committee discovered that the amendment option has significant drawbacks making it an unlikely choice.  The amendment route would have resulted in issuance of a separate 28 plus page document to be used with the current 2015 version of the standard.  Users would have to reference 2 different documents when using the new amended standard.  The committee is looking at other amendment options, but it appears the only way to avoid the 2 document problem is to do a full revision and then issue a single revision document.

If a full revision does occur, it provides more opportunity to address sections of the standard that have caused confusion for users.  Additionally, it creates an opportunity to take advantage of changes in the HLS that offer flexibility when using the term “risk and opportunity” in the planning section of the standard.

ISO 45001

The committee revising ISO 45001 has decided to do a full revision instead of just a limited amendment.  This option avoids the 2 document problem created by the amendment route and gives the committee greater flexibility in what can be changed. This includes clarifying and streamlining parts of the standard that users have found confusing and redundant.

Clause 6 (Planning) is one of the parts that has potential for improvement to make it more user friendly for small and medium sized organizations.  Clause 6 of the standard in the current version was over 1100 words and three pages in length.  One proposal being circulated for the revision by the committee would dramatically reduce the text by two thirds to only 318 words and 1 page.

There is also a proposal to refer to “OHS Hazard Risk” when describing what the OHSMS is supposed to be managing. It is thought that this may help reduce misuse of the terms “Risk” and “Hazard” interchangeably.

ISO 9001

The ISO 9001 committee has also chosen the full revision route.  However, the committee is taking a more aggressive posture when deviating from the HLS.  For over a decade ISO headquarters has insisted that it will not allow deviations from the HLS text for any of the standards.  The ISO 9001 revision committee wants to exclude certain new requirements introduced by the updated HLS.

The committee believes the new HLS requirement about climate change is not applicable to a quality management system. Although the committee believes that climate change consideration is important, they believe including it as a requirement in 9001 is inappropriate.

Conclusion

The revision of the three big ISO standards is not expected to result in new significant or reorganization of the standards.  The revisions are more likely to improve the standards by reducing unnecessary text and eliminating redundant requirements.  Organizations who meet the requirements of the current ISO standards should not need to make big changes to their Environmental, Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) and Quality management systems.  The revisions will also make these standards more accessible to small and medium sized businesses around the globe.