Environmental regulation and compliance in an ISO 14001 framework
H Fosters are a chemical distribution company, handling non-hazardous chemicals for use in the making of soaps, candles, cosmetics, etc. They have an office in Oxfordshire as well as a warehouse dealing with large, heavy goods and chemical containers, including tanks, drums, IBCs and other palletised formats. Their main business is in bulk chemical distribution but they also run a webshop to supply small quantities to cottage industries which has been of increasing importance to them.
They came to us requiring some assistance to understand their legal compliance requirements and how to manage this within the framework of ISO 9001 and 14001.
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Compliance obligations.
Quarterly
Audit programme.
QFactorial Service offering
Implementation
Based on our prior analysis of the company's business context and environmental aspects & impacts, plus up to date risk assessments, we prepared a detailed compliance tracker listing all the relevant legislation and compliance requirements. Then we established a robust audit process to monitor changes in requirements and check actual compliance. This covered Head Office, the warehouse, transport and lifecycle aspects.
Tackling legal compliance in the ISO world appears to be a struggle all SMEs share. Having guided several clients through this minefield, we know it's not easy to find an affordable, reliable, off the shelf solution. We've homed in on what we think is a practical approach that can be adapted and adopted in different ISO and compliance situations.
We set up a complete compliance tracking and auditing systems for the client, including a simple Excel tracker to check validity of requirements and summarise audit staus, detailed compliance audit reports then embedded this in to the overall audit programme. We now include this within our quarterly support activities for this client.
After we achieved ISO 9001, we decided to go for ISO 14001, and again QFactorial’s experience was invaluable. Even the complex world of environmental legislation was made easy to understand and as a result we have been able to record our environmental impact and demonstrate through our certificate that we are environmentally responsible. We are happy to continue our relationship with QFactorial as consultants to assist us in maintaining our BMS.