An amendment that affects several management system standards has been announced by ISO (www.iso.org/standard/88431.html) that applies to section 4 Context of the Organisation. This takes immediate effect, so as you review your context and interested parties these need to be taken into consideration.
The standards affected are:
- ISO 9001
- ISO 14001
- ISO 27001
- ISO 45001
- ISO 22301
The amendment introduces additional requirements to clauses 4.1 and 4.2.
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- 4.1 Add the following sentence at the end of the subclause:
“The organisation shall determine whether climate change is a relevant issue.”
Relevant issues may be internal or external to the organisation and may be positive or negative. Climate change concerns may be a threat to you achieving your strategic goals if your current product range is perceived by society as contributory, or it may be positive if you offer a solution that enables your customers to lower their carbon footprint. Your premises may be threatened by an increased flood risk, or you may be better located than your competitors for resilience against the effects of adverse weather.
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- 4.2 Add the following note at the end of the subclause:
“NOTE Relevant interested parties can have requirements related to climate change.”
Interested parties can also be internal as well as external. They are your customers, but also your suppliers, shareholders, neighbours, and the regulators that enforce regulations and standards on your activities. These parties have varying degrees of interest in your operations and varying degrees of power to intervene and/or make their interests important to you. You need to understand the relationship you have with them and prioritise the actions and communications channels required.
After reviewing these additional requirements, you may need to develop and implement additional actions within your management system to address issues raised. To talk through what this means for your management system, contact Alastair.Inskip@W-L-P.co.uk to arrange a call.