Changes to the technical requirements for the new ISO14001 standard have been finalised following a meeting of the working group in London last week.
The final draft international standard (FDIS) will be released in June for a vote by ISO members over the summer.
Publication is expected in early September, according to IEMA executive director of policy Martin Baxter. There will be a three-year transition period for companies to become accredited to the new standard.
The London meeting was called after the working group failed to resolve all outstanding issues from last year’s consultation on draft standard (DIS) at a gathering in Tokyo in February.
Steve Williams, system and governance manager for Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance (LRQA), who sits on the working group, said that there were doubts after the Tokyo meeting that the standard would be ready by September. The timetable is back on schedule following the London meeting, he confirmed.
“Based on the volume of comments received at the DIS stage, we knew there was significant work ahead of us before we could prepare for the publication of the FDIS. After five days of evaluation, all of the comments were reviewed and we can now drive the revision to 14001 ahead of the previously anticipated FDIS publication date of July 2015,” he said.
