Obtaining An Environmental Management System (EMS)

An environmental management system or EMS is management system put into place that is based on a continual cycle of planning, implementing, improving and reviewing the processes and actions an organization or company undertake to meet its environmental obligations and generally keep things running smoothly. An EMS is based on Planning , Checking and Acting(PDCA). Planning sets out to establish objectives and processes which need to deliver results in accordance to environmental processes. Doing sets out to implement the processes set out in Planning. Checking involves monitoring and measuring the processes against the obligations set out in the environmental policy. The step of Acting, the company or organization takes action to continually

An EMS certification certifies that a company or organization at hand does conform with all specified environmental regulations and standards set out by the environmental policy. This specific certification process is known as the NFS-ISR ISO 14001 environmental management systems certification process. This means that the standards that are required to attain the certification are set out by the International Organization for Standardisation. The NFS-ISR is an independent organization that tests, audits, certifies, trains and consults companies and organizations who are involved with food, water, health and the environment . It is important to note that the NFS-ISR is the mother company that appoints a team who conduct the process and the process alone. The team would be made up of members who have specific purposes and actions. However the team can't perform all actions because they don't have the direct authority needed for some steps, for this reason, the NSF-ISR are also involved in the process in certain steps. However the team are the soul conductors of the process.

The NSF-ISR ISO 14001

Once the process of conducting the EMS certification is done by the team, it is now important to understand and know who does the actual certification. The certification refers to the confirmation of certain standards of an object, person, or organization, the certification is valid for three years and needs to be renewed once the three years are over. The certificate will be issued once payment of all fees due and the signing of the Certification Agreement are done, once this happens. However organizations and companies will be subjected to one annual surveillance audit. In some exceptional cases, two surveillance audits may be carried out annually. The first surveillance will be carried out 12 months from the last day of the audit.

The process that was previously described was set out by the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF). The NSF are an accredited organization who have the authority to certify a company or organization, they develop standards, test and certify products and systems. The NSF is the actual organization that does the certification. There are many other companies or organizations that can certify, but for the process previously explained, NSF is the