Signos (Jan 2018)
The environmental management system under NTC-ISO 14001:2015 for a higher education institution from the operational planning and control
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to identify the main changes of the NTC-ISO 14001 2015 compared to the 2004 version (the high-level structure, the concept of the product life cycle, the external communication of environmental impacts and the control of planned changes in the system), and propose the necessary activities to comply with the changes included in paragraph 8.1, “Operational planning and control”, through an action plan designed specifically for the case of a higher education institution. To this end, a comparative analysis was made between the 2015 and 2004 versions of the NTC-ISO 14001, which resulted in the identification of the new requirements that organizations wishing to maintain the certification of their environmental management system must comply with. The second stage was to define as alternatives the actions that organizations that wish to carry out the transition to the 2015 version of the standard should include in the action plan, in order to comply with the requirements identified in the stage one. After the review, it can be argued that there are changes in the requirements for the transition compared to paragraph 4.4.6, “Operational control”, of the 2004 version, in aspects such as: the approach of products and services life cycle; the control of the design and development process; the external communication of possible significant impacts associated with the activities of transport, delivery, use and final disposal of products and services, and the control in change planning, that the organizations must comply through a plan of transition with the activities indicated in this document.
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