ISO 14001 risks and opportunities management plan

About risks and opportunities in ISO 14001:2015 I recommend reading Annex A.6.1.1. What does your organization want from the environmental Management System (EMS)?

How is this done? With a set of action plans:

Risks and opportunities are:

What A6.1.1 tell us is:

• Look into your list of environmental aspects, which can create risks and opportunities. Your significant aspects can generate significant impacts and those can be seen as risks and opportunities
• Look into your list of compliance obligations, are there risks of failing to comply, or opportunities to be better than compliance obligations?
• Look into your context and interested parties, which can create risks and opportunities? For example, trends in environmental legislation, trends in neighborhood or client’s sentiment about your organization’s environmental performance.

Determining environmental aspects is determining how an organization interacts with the environment. For example:

Determining risks and opportunities of an organization, according to ISO 14001:2015, is based on its environmental aspects, compliance obligations, and context and interested parties.

For example, concerning environmental aspects we can have:

Since organizations have to consider the lifecycle of its products and services, do not forget to consider risks and opportunities around your products and services during use or final disposal.

For example, concerning compliance obligations, and context and interested parties we can have for example, the above organization can realize that neighbors (an interested party) are pressuring local authorities to not allow its expansion (an external issue) due to non-compliance with wastewater discharging legislation (compliance obligations) translated into river pollution.

Please check risk definition (3.2.10) on ISO 14001:2015 (effect of uncertainty). With environmental aspects and impacts we are considering normal, expected situations, like startup and closing down operations, but also abnormal and emergency situations. Whenever there is uncertainty there is risk or opportunities, there is a potential deviation from the expected.

Please check this information below with more detailed answers:

• Environmental aspect identification and classification - https://advisera.com/14001academy/blog/2019/08/27/key-iso-14001-benefits-to-customers/nowledgebase/environmental-aspect-identification-and-classification/
• Catalogue of environmental aspects - https://advisera.com/14001academy/blog/2019/08/27/key-iso-14001-benefits-to-customers/nowledgebase/catalogue-of-environmental-aspects/
• ISO 14001 risks and opportunities vs. environmental aspects - https://advisera.com/14001academy/blog/2016/03/21/how-does-product-life-cycle-influence-environmental-aspects-according-to-iso-140012015/
• Risks and opportunities in ISO 14001:2015 – What they are and why they are important - https://advisera.com/14001academy/blog/2016/03/07/risks-and-opportunities-in-iso-140012015-what-they-are-and-why-they-are-important/
• Free webinar - ISO 14001: Identification and evaluation of environmental aspects - https://advisera.com/14001academy/webinar/iso-14001-identification-and-evaluation-of-environmental-aspects-free-webinar-on-demand/
• ISO 14001 document template: Procedure for Identification and Evaluation of Environmental Aspects and Risks - https://advisera.com/14001academy/documentation/procedure-for-identification-and-evaluation-of-environmental-aspects/
• Enroll for free in this course – ISO 14001:2015 Lead Auditor Course - https://advisera.com/training/iso-14001-lead-auditor-course/
• Book – The ISO 14001:2015 Companion - https://advisera.com/books/the-iso-14001-2015-companion/