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An introduction to ISO 14001 Legal Registers

Legal Registers and your ISO 14001 Environmental Management System

ISO 14001 is the world’s most recognised Environmental Management Standard. To gain certification, organisations need to make some key commitments, which include a commitment to meeting and complying with legal compliance obligations.

To help you meet this commitment, your organisation will need to implement processes that ensure you can:

  • Identify legal and other requirements that apply to your organisation.
  • Keep up to date with changes to legislation.

The benefit of understanding legislation and its requirements is invaluable to a company. Legislation often identifies critical tasks that help you prevent pollution and improve your environmental performance. (Incidentally, these are the other two key commitments that are required to get certified to ISO 14001!)

Failure to demonstrate that you are managing legal and other requirements can lead to Non-conformance, and nobody wants that – make sure you do everything you can to avoid regulatory prosecution!

In this article we shall explore:

  • What is an Environmental ISO 14001 Legal Register?
  • Creating an Environmental ISO 14001 Legal Register.
  • Getting value an Environmental ISO 14001 Legal Register.
ISO 14001 Legal Register

What is an Environmental ISO 14001 Legal Register?

An Environmental Legal Register enables you to consolidate all required legislation into a convenient format that is useful to you and your team. Whilst you can create an Environmental Legal Register in a simple word or excel document, it’s often much easier to use a tool such as the ISO Compliance Register as it helps you add information about legislation quickly and easily.

An Environmental Legal Register, or an ISO 14001 Legal Register – same thing – is a list of the legislation and other compliance requirements that either affect your business directly, or may be of interest to the business, even if there is no impact.

ISO 14001 works on the premise of ‘Plan-Do-Check-Act’. As part of your planning process for ISO 14001, you will need to identify the Context of the Business and it’s interested parties. This is a useful exercise because if you understand your company processes, products and services, as well as who you are working with, you will have useful insights into the relevant legislation that you need to include in your Environmental Legal Register.

ISO 14001 works on the premise of ‘Plan-Do-Check-Act’.
PDCA will give you useful insights into the relevant legislation to include in your ISO 14001 Legal Register.

Remember that you will need to demonstrate that whomever compiles and assesses your Legal Registers should be competent to do so; if you don’t have anyone qualified or trained in environmental issues, our team at ISO Compliance Registers can help you.

When you are planning the detail of your legal register, consider the following:

Your Legal Register should contain information on:

  • Legislation that affects your business directly
  • Company requirements e.g. satisfying customers or shareholders,
  • Contractual issues that you need to include in your business processes,
  • Sector or Trade body requirements that apply to your business,
  • Industry standards established by the relevant regulatory body e.g. the Environment Agency.
5 things to go in your ISO 14001 Legal Register
Ensure these 5 key points are associated with your environmental legal register.

Creating an Environmental ISO 14001 Legal Register.

An ISO 14001 Legal Register is incredibly helpful to you and your team. An effective ISO 14001 Legal Register will help you:

  • Consolidate all legislation, including amendments, in one location.
  • Gather other requirements, such as contractual elements.
  • Clarify roles and responsibilities ensuring accountability and efficiency.
  • Identify and implement necessary controls for continually improving your environmental management system.
  • Facilitate the management of routine assessments, such as internal audits and management reviews, by providing a structured framework and reference point.
5 benefits of an ISO 14001 legal register
ISO 14001 outlines essential requirements concerning legal and compliance obligations, making a legal register an invaluable tool for consolidating all necessary information into a single, easily accessible location.

ISO 14001 outlines essential requirements concerning legal and compliance obligations, making an Environmental Legal Register an invaluable tool for consolidating all necessary information into a single, easily accessible location. This consolidated database enables efficient management of regulatory requirements, facilitates compliance efforts and reduces the risk of oversight or non-compliance.

Additionally, an ISO 14001 certification frequently acts as a cornerstone when securing a trading licence with clients and stakeholders, who typically seek proof of such certification prior to engaging in business. Maintaining an up-to-date ISO 14001 legal register gives great evidence to your commitment to comply to legal and other requirements.

ISO 14001 emphasises the importance of ‘continual improvement’. As your business grows and changes, you need to regularly review and update your ISO 14001 legal register to reflect changes in regulation, business operations, and compliance requirements. Don’t forget that all these changes need to be communicated to your team, so they fully understand them.