what are the basic standards for ISO 14001 certification?

Question

found an answer at iso.org:

"The ISO 14000 family [of standards] is primarily concerned with "environmental management". This means what the organization does to:

- minimize harmful effects on the environment caused by its activities, and to
- achieve continual improvement of its environmental performance."

http://www.iso.org/iso/en/iso9000-14000/understand/inbrief.html

Answer 1

For the company I worked for it meant we had all of our work processes, documents and emergency plans printed out in a folder and also in our computer system. We were audited yearly to keep our ISO certification.
To make you feel not so safe, most environmental services companies are not ISO certified.

Answer 2

difficult to find exact .. but this may help

The best known standard in the family is ISO 14001, specifying the requirements of an environmental management system (EMS). ISO 14001 provides the basis for independent certification of an organization's EMS. An ISO 14001-certified EMS provides confidence to external parties that an organization has control over the significant environmental aspects of its operational processes, that it has committed itself to comply with all relevant environmental legislation and regulations and to continually improve its overall environmental performance.

Answer 3

Essentially, ISO 14001 is a formal, verifiable, environmental system. Here's a link to the requirements ...

http://www.praxiom.com/iso-14001-2004.htm

Most companies become certified to the standard because their customers require it. Let's say, for example, that you are running a company and you want to make sure your suppliers use good environmental practices. You have 2 option; (1) you can audit them to make sure, or (2) you can require them to become certified to the ISO 14001 standard, and they will be audited by independent auditors about once a year.

Answer 4

ISO 14001 Environmental management systems—Requirements with guidance for use
ISO 14004 Environmental management systems—General guidelines on principles, systems and support techniques
ISO 14006 Environmental management systems—Guidelines for incorporating ecodesign
ISO 14015 Environmental assessment of sites and organizations
ISO 14020 series (14020 to 14025) Environmental labels and declarations
ISO 14030 discusses post-production environmental assessment
ISO 14031 Environmental performance evaluation—Guidelines
ISO 14040 series (14040 to 14049), Life Cycle Assessment, LCA, discusses pre-production planning and environment goal setting.
ISO 14046 sets guidelines and requirements for water footprint assessments of products, processes, and organizations. Includes only air and soil emissions that impact water quality in the assessment.