Notification to certified organizations/ organizations that are in the process of certification about changes in management system standards

ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, as part of the measures to implement the London Declaration on Climate Change, on February 23, 2024., has published changes (amendments) related to existing management system standards (ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, ISO 22000 , ISO/IEC 27001, ISO 50001, etc.).

Changes (in the form of amendments) are the same for all management system standards.

Requirements 4.1 and 4.2 have been supplemented:

• Requirement 4.1: The organization must determine whether climate change is a relevant issue.
• Requirement 4.2: NOTE: Relevant stakeholders may have requirements related to climate change.

The IAF International Accreditation Forum has issued guidelines (https://iaf.nu/en/news/iaf-and-iso-publish-joint-communique) for all stakeholders (accreditation bodies, certification bodies and standards implementing organizations).

In accordance with these guidelines, organizations are required to:

• within requirement 4.1, analyze the impact of climate change on the ability to achieve the expected results of their management system
• consider the impact of climate change individually for each applied management system
• ensure that internal and external issues related to climate change are determined as relevant or not
• review the needs and expectations of stakeholders and to determine whether there are relevant needs and expectations related to climate change
• for all relevant issues, take a measures to adapt to climate change, that is, to mitigate climate change

Since there is no transition period for this change, organizations should implement these changes immediately.

StandCert will start verifying the implementation of the amended requirements of the standard related to climate change at the initial, surveillance and certification audits, starting from 01.05.2024.