ISO 14001

7 Top Online Learning Benefits For Busy People Always On The Run

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Do you have a busy work schedule, a hectic personal life and a lengthy list of responsibilities that prevent you from continuing your education or learning a new skill? Have you ever considered Online Learning?

Thanks to our partnership with Erudio Global, it’s possible for you to further your education and develop new skill sets. Online courses relating to ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management and ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management are currently on offer, with a few more expansions to take place in the months to come!

ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 are amongst some of the most globally demanded Management Systems due to requirements from various stakeholders. There are several key requirements within each of these two standards, which mean that you and your organisation need to get up to scratch, and fast!

Our ISO Quality Management and Environmental Management Online Learning courses are geared for the busy professional and anyone who wants to boost their career opportunities.

If you want to make a habit of lifelong learning, which let’s be honest has become a necessity to keep up with changes in our fast-paced world, Online Learning offers endless possibilities.

Here, we highlight a few of the many benefits that Online Learning offers busy people.

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WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF ONLINE LEARNING?

If you simply don’t have the time or money to attend traditional classes or training events to develop skills that will help you achieve your personal and professional goals, consider these benefits of Online Learning:

1. Online Learning Improves Knowledge Retention

Every learner, no matter their age or educational background, can benefit from an Online Learning experience. It gives you the ability to learn at your own pace and on your own terms, which boosts knowledge absorption and retention.

You get to choose how you want to study. Sometimes, that means choosing when to move on to the next module, rather than moving along at the pace of a tutor, your peers or colleagues. If you are able to learn when it’s most convenient for you, you are more likely to become immersed in the learning experience.

2. Online Learning Fits Into Your Schedule

You can access our ISO Online Learning courses during work breaks, while you’re waiting to board a flight, or when you have free time in the evening and over the weekend.

Online Learning fits into your schedule because you can access the courses and learning materials whenever and where ever it’s most convenient for you.

You don’t have to follow a specific schedule or attend training events. With some courses, you simply download online material and access it even when you don’t have an internet connection.

If you need more structure, there are also options for this which still won’t absorb a huge amount of your time. You get the structure through a facilitator-led online course, whilst still conveniently fitting it into your busy schedule.

3. You Don't Need to Travel for Online Learning

With ISO Online Learning you don’t have to worry about traffic or take time out of your busy work schedule to attend a training event. It’s all done virtually, so there’s no need to factor in travel time and transport costs.

Even if you have a busy lifestyle or live in a remote area, you can still access our high level ISO online training… Just make sure you have good internet and a pair of headphones for the videos.

4. You Can Customise Your Online Learning Experience

No two people learn alike, which means that no two learning experiences should be the same. Our ISO Online Learning gives you the opportunity to customise your learning experience and have control over what and how you learn.

You’re able to access the course videos and material as frequently as you need to! Online access means you’re able to login and revisit whatever part of the course you need to, at any time of the day.

5. Online Learning Doesn't Interfere with Your Work or Home Life

The main reason many busy people don’t enroll in classes or hesitate to attend training events is because they don’t want to have to choose between learning and personal or professional obligations.

With Online Learning, you don’t need to miss out on invaluable learning opportunities that could improve all aspects of your life… Be sure to eliminate any distractions during your stud session though!

6. Online Learning Empowers and Motivates You

If you’re feeling stuck in your daily work routine, a significant benefit of Online Learning is that it empowers you to learn new skills and take control of your personal and professional goals. By becoming an active participant in your own learning experience, you can get that dream job or secure a promotion and further your career.

7. Online Learning Removes the Fear of Failure

Online learners don’t have to stress about not passing a test or failing in front of their peers or colleagues. The Online Learning environment takes the risk out of learning because learners no longer have to worry about the fear of failure.

By removing the fear of failure, the potential to acquire new knowledge and skills becomes limitless. People become more willing to test their boundaries and to experiment when they aren’t afraid of being judged.

Mistakes can be a powerful learning tool and a chance to gain experiences that you would not have gathered otherwise. Online Learning offers you the opportunity to explore a topic and expand your knowledge without consequences.

These are just a handful of the benefits our ISO Online Learning offers busy people. In short, it’s a great way to get started on accomplishing your goals!

JOIN THE ONLINE LEARNING EVOLUTION TODAY!

Are you ready to begin the Online Learning journey? Does Online Learning need more, less or the same level of commitment as the traditional instructor-led training you are used to?

Get in touch with the Risk ZA team to learn more about it. Call +27 (0) 31 569 5900 or email info@riskza.com

Before you commit to our online learning platform, Download our FREE Guide to find out the 10 Top Study Tips For Online Learners That Guarantee Success!

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Smart Cities of Tomorrow: How will our future urban spaces look?

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Imagine a city of the future. Do you see clean streets, electric cars and robots doing all the work?

Or perhaps your vision is more dystopian. The Los Angeles in the Blade Runner movies is a grim depiction of the city in 2019 and 2049. The sea has risen to dangerous levels, the sky is dark and foreboding, and the skyline is dominated by ominous skyscrapers.

Philip K. Dick’s iconic 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, on which the Blade Runner films are loosely based, is a dystopian yet ultimately hopeful novel about human engagement with artificial intelligence. The book makes profound comments on human relationships and explores the questions that plague us: Why are we in such a mess? And: Why has society degenerated to such a degree?

Download our FREE Guide: Top Six Sustainability Standards that Drive Results for Businesses.

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CITIES ARE REACHING BREAKING POINT

The dystopian future of Blade Runner intersects with what experts and scientists predict our world and cities will become like in the very near future – more populous, more polluted, more crime-ridden and facing the imminent collapse of basic services, all compounded by unpredictable weather events.

Almost half of the world’s population currently lives in cities, and by 2050 this figure is projected to increase to 75%.

“Cities are reaching breaking point,” says Professor David Gann, who heads up the London Imperial College’s Digital Economy Lab.

The time is upon us, say the experts, to start designing smarter urban environments. New cities are needed to sustain an ever-growing population, and the urban spaces that we have lived in for centuries need to be retrofitted. But what kind of cites will we be living in?

BUILDING CITIES FOR AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE

The cities of the future will be shaped by ideas, and there are plenty of competing ideas about how futuristic urban spaces should look.

Some of these centre around the idea that smarter means greener.

Sustainability experts are working towards carbon-neutral cities with electric vehicles and bike-sharing schemes and improved air quality so that office workers in the smoggiest cities can actually open their windows.

Visions of a green city often include high-rise building where living and office spaces are surrounded by floating greenhouses or vertical gardens and green roofs.

Imagine our harbours filled with floating farms? It sounds absurd. But the Jellyfish Barge could be the answer to future urban farming. The barge is a floating greenhouse that desalinates seawater to irrigate and grow plants. Using solar energy, it mimics the water cycle and turns salt water into clean, freshwater which is recycled over and over again to irrigate hydroponically grown crops.

“We can save 70% of water compared to traditional cultivation,” says Cristiana Favretto, one half of the Italian architectural duo at Studimobile who came up with the concept. Each barge has the potential to produce around 1000 to 1500 edible plants per month.

SMART CITIES WORK BETTER FOR CITIZENS

Technology companies like IBM believe that the smartest cities will be those that are connected into the Internet of Things, where objects are made smart by being connected to each other.

A network of sensors will provide a host of data about how a city is performing. This will allow systems to be joined up and to work more efficiently. It will also bring unimaginable new services to citizens, or at least Professor David Gann thinks so.

IBM currently has projects in cities around the world, from crime prevention analytics to water databases and smarter public transport systems in Zhenjiang, China.

IBM’s flagship project is in Rio de Janeiro and it’s the work of IBM’s Smarter Cities Unit.

IBM has created data centres for single agencies like police departments. But this is a citywide system integrating data from 30 government agencies and providing mobile applications to keep citizens in touch with city updates such as accident blackspots and flood warnings.

WHAT SMART CITIES ENCOMPASS

Smart City and smart city projects are intended to make cities work better and more liveable. They apply information and communications technology to monitor, measure and control city processes, from transportation to water supplies, and the location of vehicles to the performance of electric grids.

Smart Cities are all about saving money, becoming more efficient and delivering better services and living spaces to citizens. The elements of Smart Cities include:

Smart Energy

Smart energy uses digital technology for the intelligent and integrated transmission and distribution of power.

Smart Buildings

Smart buildings are green and energy-efficient, with advanced automated infrastructure.

Smart Mobility

Smart mobility enables intelligent mobility through the use of innovative and integrated technologies.

Smart Technology

Smart technology connects the home, office, mobile phone and car on a single wireless IT platform.

Smart Healthcare

Smart Healthcare uses eHealth and mHealth (mobile health) systems and intelligent and connected medical devices. Johannesburg started rolling out its e-health programme in 2016, and has extended eHealth to include a smart queuing system.

Smart Infrastructure

Smart Infrastructure includes intelligent and automated systems that manage, communicate and integrate different types of intelligent infrastructure such as energy grids, transport networks, water and waste management systems and telecommunications.

Smart Governance

Smart Governance includes policies and digital services from the government that help and support businesses and citizens adopt green and intelligent solutions through incentives, subsidies or other schemes.

Smart Citizens

Smart Citizens embrace smart and green solutions in their day-to-day work activities and choose products and services  that fit their “smart” lifestyle choices.

While critics are up in arms about President Ramaphosa’s inaugural speech and in particular his vision of creating a new African smart city, South Africa has been preparing to embrace smart cities for a number of years.

Recognising that cities hold the key to so many different aspects of a sustainable future, the Cities Support Programme (CSP) was set up by National Treasury in 2011, and within every major municipality, examples of smart projects can be found.

It’s easy to be cynical, and even easier to be apathetic. But that’s not where the solutions lie… and that’s not the future.

ISO FIRST FOR SUSTAINABILITY

Did you know that ISO has published over 22 000 International Standards on a variety of subjects and all of them are designed to support sustainability? 

Finding innovative, sustainable solutions to the problems our businesses and communities are facing is possibly the greatest leadership challenge of our time.

To find out how ISO standards can assist you on your sustainability journey, download our FREE Guide on the Top Six Sustainability Standards that Drive Results for Businesses.

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WORK WITH RISK ZA

How is your organisation preparing for a sustainable future? We can help you discover the sustainability issues affecting your business and provide workable solutions through our various ISO public training courses, online learning solutions and consulting services.

Need more information? Call our team today on +27 (0) 31 569 5900 to discuss solutions for building a future-proof business that is both sustainable AND profitable.

PLUS! Ask us if we have any specials to offer you at the moment!

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Cleaning Up Your Business: 7 ‘deadly’ Wastes ALL Companies Must Combat

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One of the key aspects of driving your business forward is being able to identify and tackle waste.

Taiichi Ohno is credited with being the father of the Toyota Production System. He created a Lean Manufacturing framework based on the idea of preserving or increasing value with less work. Anything that doesn’t increase value for the customer is waste and every effort should be made to eliminate that waste.

Environmental waste is any unnecessary use of resources or a substance released into the air, water, or land that could harm human health or the environment. Environmental wastes are often a sign of inefficient production, and frequently indicate opportunities for saving costs and time.

Lean efforts can lead to significant environmental gains since environmental wastes are related to Ohno’s 7 wastes.

Download our FREE Guide: ISO Environmental Management Systems 101: Basic Concepts & Principles Explained!

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TURNING WASTE INTO WORTH

Yet the latest draft of State of Waste Report and statistics from the CSIR show without a shadow of doubt that South Africa has a massive waste problem, which we are doing little to solve through our own initiates.

Quite shockingly, only 10% of the waste produced annually is recycled, leaving a staggering 54 million tons of general waste to be transported to landfill.

Much of the waste sent to landfill can be reused. These resources that we are throwing in the bin have an annual value of R17 billion according to the CSIR.

Waste management changes on the horizon

However, a raft of legislative and regulatory changes are looming on the horizon. These are set to radically alter the waste management landscape and are intended to move South Africa towards a more resource-efficient economy.

Various industries such as paper and packaging have already submitted Industry Waste Management Plans for approval by the Minister of Environmental Affairs, and retailers are busy phasing out single-use plastic bags to meet the 2020 deadline.

By the end of 2021, liquid waste and batteries will be banned from landfill sites. Targets for reducing organic waste disposal by 50% in 2023 have been set and include food and garden waste both produced in vast quantities by several industries.

Landfill sites are poised to increase gate fees as they become ever-more squeezed for space.

We have already seen the first phase of Carbon Tax implemented on 1 June 2019. Carbon Tax adopts the ‘polluter-pays principle’ to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Even if you’re not liable to pay Carbon Tax, you should be able to benefit if you invest in products and processes with lower carbon footprints and make use of National Treasury’s Carbon Offset Scheme.

But what steps can you take to improve your processes and manage all these changes?

How can I change the way I do business?

We recommend that the best way to manage the threats posed by the impending legislation is to understand the potential risks that they pose to your business. This knowledge can then be used to identify opportunities to alleviate the risks, increase your business’s resilience and ideally realise competitive advantage.

In our experience, it’s quite possible to decrease or stop generating certain types of waste by changing processes. You can achieve this by implementing policies and procedures that refine or change the way you run your business and are based on the clearly-defined principles of Environmental Management.

One of the biggest benefits of implementing an Environmental Management System is the potential it offers to reduce waste.

Click here to find out How ISO 14001:2015 can help your organisation achieve Zero Waste to Landfill.

THE 7 'DEADLY' WASTES AND THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

In nearly every organisation, 95 percent or more of the activities and time in business processes do not add value. Below are the 7 wastes according to Taiichi Ohno and their environmental impacts:
Waste TypeEnvironmental Impact
1. Overproduction (the biggest waste)
  • More raw materials and energy consumed in the making of unnecessary products.
  • Extra products may require disposal.
  • Extra materials used in production result in more emissions, waste disposal, water usage etc.
2. Waiting
  • Potential material spoilage or component damage causing waste.
  • Wasted energy from heating, cooling and lighting during production downtime.
3 & 4. Transportation & Motion
  • More energy used for transportation.
  • Emissions from transport.
  • More packaging required to protect products during movement.
  • Damage and spills during transport.
5. Over-processing
  • More parts and raw materials consumed per unit of production.
  • Unnecessary processing increases energy and water use and emissions.
6. Defects
  • More raw materials and energy consumed in making defective products.
  • Defective products require recycling or disposal.
  • More space required for rework and repair, increasing energy use.
7. Inventory
  • More packaging to store work-in-process (WIP).
  • Waste from deterioration or damage to stored WIP.
  • More material need to replace damaged WIP.
  • More energy used.

Source: Shmula.com

HOW CAN I BENEFIT FROM ISO 14000:2015?

The ISO 14001 family and ISO 14000:2015 in particular can help you to measure and improve your environmental performance in a number of areas, including:

  • Resource management
  • Waste reduction and treatment
  • Recycling
  • Energy savings

Why should I care about the environment?

In short, because it’s what your customers want, and it can save you money. A lot of consumers care about the planet. A Unilever study reveals that:

  • 33% of consumers prefer buying goods and services from “socially or environmentally active” brands.
  • 21% of consumers prefer brands that use sustainable packaging.

Essentially, consumers want to know that their brand of choice is doing something to support the environment.

South Africa's waste management leaders

A handful of South Africa’s corporates lead the pack in waste management. One of these companies is Consol Glass. South Africa’s biggest glass manufacturer uses ISO 14001:2015 to manage a sizeable sustainability programme and has implemented clean production technologies to reduce energy consumption and their carbon footprint.

Since 2011, 80 South African companies became part of the National Cleaner Production Centre’s Industrial Energy Efficiency Project to implement cleaner production processes and use less energy, water and materials.

Together these companies have saved enough electricity to supply 120 000 middle-income South African families with power for a whole year!

A fantastic effort, don’t you agree? And the reason why more and more organisations are choosing to use ISO 14000:2015! This Environmental Management System encourages you to think about risks and opportunities and find innovative solutions to challenging problems that will ultimately provide you with a competitive edge and significant cost savings.

Want to find out more about the benefits of the fabulous ISO 14000 family of Environmental Standards?

Download our FREE Guide: ISO Environmental Management Systems 101: Basic Concepts & Principles Explained!

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WORK WITH RISK ZA

We have collective experience of over 30 years in training, consulting and implementing ISO related management solutions for organisations of all types and sizes in the Southern African region. Our expert team has helped dozens of businesses transform their organisations, from simply assessing their risks, to helping them find sustainable solutions to challenging environmental problems.

Does your team need guidance on ISO 14001:2015? Contact us on +27 (0) 31 569 5900 or email info@riskza.com, and let us help you through the process.

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ISO 14001:2015 – Internal Audits Drive Real Improvements

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Confronted with dramatic environmental challenges, plus a slew of regulatory requirements, many organisations have implemented environmental management systems (EMSs). An ISO 14001:2015 based EMS is the most popular, used to meet compliance obligations, monitor environmental policies and procedures, manage resources and control environmental harms.

ISO 14001:2015 is a systems-based management tool centering around the Plan-Do-Check-Act method, which drives continual improvement. The standard outlines in Clause 9.2 that internal audits at set intervals are necessary to support the theme of continual improvement underpinning the management system.

The purpose of internal audits is to ensure that the organisation’s environmental policies, objectives, compliance obligations and performance requirements are met and recorded, and that any corrective action is taken where necessary.

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Our FREE Downloadable Guide How To Conduct An Environmental Management Systems Audit explores more about the ISO 14001 Environmental Audit process. You can get hold of it by clicking the button below.

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What to expect from an ISO 14001:2015 audit

A key point to emphasise is that the intended outcomes of ISO 14001:2015 have not changed. The EMS must:

  • Protect the environment.
  • Meet compliance obligations.
  • Enhance environmental performance.

ISO 14001:2015 does, however, have a number of new requirements that will change the focus of an audit, which include:

  • Context of the organisation
  • Leadership
  • Planning
  • Support
  • Documentation
  • Operations
  • Performance evaluation
  • Improvement

ISO 14001:2015 - Clause 9: Performance evaluation

Performance evaluation is about measuring and evaluating an EMS to establish whether it meets the organisation’s planned outcomes. Evaluation provides valuable information for continual improvement by:

  • Evaluating the EMS’s effectiveness.
  • Establishing whether requirements of the standard are being met.
  • Verifying whether compliance obligations have been met.
  • Reviewing the EMs’s suitability, adequacy, effectiveness and efficiency.
  • Demonstrating that planning has been properly implemented.
  • Assessing the performance of processes against outcomes.
  • Determining the need or opportunities for improvement.

Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation

Monitoring in the sense of ISO 14001 means checking, reviewing, inspecting and observing  planned activities to ensure that they are occurring as intended. So, for example, if an operational control states that water quality will be inspected twice weekly, then this is a monitoring process. Monitoring and measurement :

  • Evaluates environmental performance;
  • Analyses root causes of problems;
  • Assesses compliance with compliance obligations;
  • Identifies areas for corrective action;
  • Improves performance and efficiency.

The Internal audit programme

Unlike an audit schedule or audit plan, an audit programme includes the full life-cycle of auditing. From the very decision to use audit as a tool through planning and initiating the audit, performing, reporting and follow-up, to improvement of the entire programme and its constituent parts.

All parts of the EMS should be audited at minimum yearly, this is typically dealt with in an annual audit schedule. The entire EMS can be audited at once or in parts for more frequent audits. To establish the frequency of EMS audits, consider:

  • The nature of your operations;
  • Risks and opportunities;
  • Statutory and regulatory requirements and compliance obligations;
  • Significant environmental aspects / impacts;
  • Results of your monitoring programme;
  • Results of previous audits.

There are two principle considerations when auditing:

Compliance/conformance audits – ensure that management arrangements, like procedures, are being followed in order to comply with the requirements of ISO 14001.

Performance Audits –  ensure that the outputs of the management arrangements are achieving their intended outcomes. For example, the results of engineering controls applied to mitigate air pollution are achieving the legal limits.

ISO 14001 demands an approach that combines both a compliance/conformance and a performance approach to auditing.

Who should perform an environmental audit?

ISO 19011:2018 – Guidelines for auditing management systems – contains information on how to choose an Environmental Auditor. Environmental Auditors should have personal attributes, such as ethics, open-mindedness, perceptiveness and tact. They should understand audit principles, procedures and techniques, and have gained experience by conducting audits. They should know the subject matter they are auditing against and how this applies to different organisations.

Audit Team Leaders should be able to plan and resource effectively, have good communication and leadership skills. Environmental Auditors should complete training and have attained an appropriate level of education. When seeking an External Auditor consider the skills outlined here.

Auditor qualifications

All auditors need to receive initial and ongoing training. EMS auditors should be trained in auditing techniques and management system concepts, environmental regulations, and facility operations. For performance audits, an auditor needs to have a good understanding of the standard and the EMS, and a broad understanding of environmental issues. Auditors should be reasonably independent of the area or activity that is being audited and can definitely not audit their own work.

An effective audit programme should:

  • Develop audit procedures and protocols.
  • Establish an appropriate audit frequency.
  • Train auditors.  
  • Maintain audit records.
  • Link audit results to the corrective action system.

NEW! ISO 19011:2018: Guidelines for auditing management systems

Auditors are the ears and eyes of top management because they can provide an independent appraisal of an organisation’s operations and activities. In addition, a skillful auditor will add value to a management system by finding opportunities for improvement. It’s important to note that ISO 19011:2018 has significantly raises the bar on what constitutes essential competencies that management-systems auditors need to possess or acquire.

Revisions to ISO 9001:2015 (QMS), ISO 14001:2015 (EMS), and ISO 45001:2018 (OH&S) are all based on Annex SL of ISO Directive 1, the ISO High Level Structure. Consequently, ISO 19011 includes an annex to deal with how to audit organisational context, leadership and commitment, compliance and the supply chain, amongst others. The new standard will help with the effective audit of these management systems and facilitate a uniform approach to the auditing process where multiple systems are in place.

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Our FREE Downloadable Guide How To Conduct An Environmental Management Systems Audit explores more about the ISO 14001 Environmental Audit process. You can get hold of it by clicking the button below.

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For more information or guidance on which ISO standard(s) and services would best suit the needs of your organisation, please email Risk ZA at info@riskza.com or contact us on 0861 Risk ZA / +27 (0) 31 569 5900.

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Zero Waste To Landfill With ISO 14001:2015 – Waste Management

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Waste Management
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“People don’t understand waste,” says Chris Whyte, managing director of a Durban-based organisation that reclaims waste materials from landfills. “When people talk about climate change and issues of sustainability, they allocate a tiny sliver of the problem – 2% – to landfill,” he explains. “That’s because the measurements apply only to landfill gas emissions. But put landfill into perspective: we landfill 6 000 tons a day. That is 600 10-ton trucks, and that’s just Durban.”

Rapid urbanisation in South Africa – and globally – has resulted in increased waste production due to new commercial enterprises, accommodation, hotels, and restaurants. The pace of urbanisation is projected to be the fastest in low-income and middle-income countries, which will present challenges to governments to meet the needs of their growing urban populations.

A World Bank report in 2016 noted that worldwide municipal solid waste is growing faster than the rate of urbanisation, and these levels are expected to double by 2025. Alarmingly, the World Bank’s disposal data shows that almost half of global waste sent to landfill is organic material made up of paper, plastic, glass and metal. So, much of this waste could be recycled.

As it stands, almost all of South Africa’s solid waste (88%) is sent to landfill, or taken off-site for disposal by hazardous waste removal specialists. As the 2016 World Bank report highlights, global waste management efforts are far from stellar, but even so South Africa lags behind other countries and even its fellow BRICS countries in waste management.

pollution waste

Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez, a Senior Director at the World Bank Group comments that: “Without good solid waste management, you can’t build a sustainable and livable city. There are climate, health, and safety impacts, as well as important social considerations, from the inclusion of waste pickers to changing behaviour so people and societies are encouraged to reduce and recycle waste.”

The Future of Waste Management in Africa

Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT) and technological innovations, smart African cities will be able to achieve zero waste and reduce municipalities’ operational costs by using more efficient waste collection systems. The smart waste collection technology industry is still in its infancy, but Navigant Research, a U.S. research company expects this type of technology to grow from $57.6-million in 2016 to over $223-million by 2025.

Nick Manny of Aurecon cautions, though, that it will not be possible for municipalities to go from the current landfill situation to smart technologies quickly because the technical, financial, institutional and social restrictions they face will not be easy to overcome. Waste management is therefore up to industry, waste management suppliers and experts working together to find solutions to the challenges that confront governments and municipalities.

Reaching for Zero Waste to Landfill Using ISO 14001

Waste management is the process of treating wastes, and it offers solutions for recycling and reusing materials and substances that do not belong in landfill or can be used for other purposes. Waste diversion from landfills is an important sustainability effort for organisations to strive towards as it demonstrates environmental stewardship, which a growing number of customers and other stakeholders are coming to expect.

Industry leaders like Walmart and Starbucks are in the process of rolling out waste diversion programmes as a key part of their Corporate Social Responsibility strategy. Their sights are set on achieving a zero waste to landfill milestone, starting at a facility-level and aiming globally. Subaru of Indiana Automotive is an indisputable trailblazer in the coveted zero waste to landfill management goal. For the past 13 years, Subaru and two of their manufacturing plants in Japan have sent zero waste to local landfills. Subaru’s coveted zero-waste to landfill achievement is guided by ISO 14001.

The Canon Group is one of the few organisations to achieve consolidated ISO 14001 certification covering all their operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The organisation uses their Environmental Management System to apply environmental considerations to every aspect of the product lifecycle and at the end of their life, products are stripped down and re-used or recycled.​

Closing Thoughts

ISO 14001:2015 provides a framework and a structured approach to handling waste but does not prescribe the steps in waste handling, which means that every organisation can approach the process of waste management according to their own needs.

Training of all employees and contractors that have anything to do with the handling of waste is a necessary first step towards waste management. The ISO 14001:2015 Standard will provide your organisation with an effective waste management strategy to maximise resources and minimise environmental impact. ISO 14001 also has the flexibility to include changes to legislation, materials, prices and customer expectations that will repay your organisation’s investment in training and the time it takes to develop an effective strategy.

Zero Waste To Landfill With ISO 14001:2015 - Waste Management

For more information or guidance on which ISO standard(s) and services would best suit the needs of your organisation, please email Risk ZA at info@riskza.com or contact us on 0861 Risk ZA / +27 (0) 31 569 5900.

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