ISO 14001 certification steps
The ISO 14001 certification process is based on the plan-do-check-act; principle and usually involves the following steps:
- Preparatory meeting: definition of certification field
- Optional pre-audit: gap analysis and evaluation of your current degree of standard fulfillment
- Initial two-stage on-site audit:
Stage 1: completeness review to verify the status of your organisation for certification
Stage 2: evaluation of implementation, including the effectiveness of your management system
- Evaluation of EMS and certification: a certificate valid for three years is issued if results of Stage 2 audit are satisfactory
- Surveillance audit: every 12 months to verify that the management system still comes up to standard and to monitor on-going improvement
- Re-certification: after three years to confirm the on-going conformity of the entire management system
