Inclusion of climate change aspects in the standards for management systems
The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) recognised some time ago that the climate crisis and its effects pose major challenges. As a result, ISO and IAF published a joint communiqué on 22 February 2024.
This communiqué sets out changes to ensure that companies and organisations address these issues. These changes are anchored in Chapters 4.1 – Understanding the organisation and its context and 4.2 – Understanding the needs and expectations of interested parties and are as follows:
Chapter 4.1: “The organisation must determine whether climate change is a relevant issue.”
Original text: “The organisation shall determine whether climate change is a relevant issue.”Chapter 4.2: “Note: Relevant interested parties may have requirements related to climate change.”
Original text: “NOTE: Relevant interested parties can have requirements related to climate change.”ISO 27001:2022, ISO 22301:2019, ISO 20000-1:2018, among others.
Implications for organisations
For certified organisations, nothing will change insofar as the certificates remain valid. The new requirements will be reviewed by auditors in the respective audits. However, certified companies must ensure that they address the issue of climate change and the resulting challenges by addressing the issues (as defined above) in context and taking into account the requirements of interested parties accordingly.
What happens next
These requirements will be included in all type A management system standards (certifiable standards) – this affects among others the standards ISO 27001:2022, ISO 22301:2019 and ISO 20000-1:2018 and will subsequently be included in the harmonised structure of Appendix 2 of Annex SL.
The Auditing Practices Group, an informal ISO group consisting of experts, auditors and users, also has an English-language guide. This guide describes how these topics can be covered as examples in an ISO 9001 audit. Organisations can use this guidance as a basis for reviewing and anchoring the above topics internally.
How CIS supports you
Our auditors are prepared to deal with the relevant issues in the audits and to consider and query them in an integrated manner. If you have any further questions, please contact us or the auditor responsible for you.
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