On 22 February, 2024, the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) published a joint statement announcing changes (amendments) to existing ISO standards for management systems related to climate action. These changes were published by all relevant ISO technical committees on 23 February 2024.
The changes reflect ISO's climate action commitments as a sign of support for the London Declaration on Climate Change and a response to the need to consider the impact of climate change on the ability to achieve the intended outcomes of management system standards. The ISO decision also states the content of these amendments, which are identical for all standards for management systems and refer to all international standards published so far, and will be an integral part of all future editions of standards in this area, as well as ISO/IEC Directive, Part 1, Annex SL, Appendix 2.
The changes are as follows:
Clause 4.1: The organization must determine whether climate change is a relevant issue.
Clause 4.2: NOTE: Relevant stakeholders may have requirements related to climate change.
The IAF has published an official decision regarding the above changes to clarify their impact on accreditation bodies, certification bodies and certified organizations. You can view the entire text of this decision at the following link:
https://iaf.nu/en/news/iaf-and-iso-publish-joint-communique/
In the IAF announcement, it is emphasized that the general objective of the requirements for Clauses 4.1 and 4.2 of the management system standards remains unchanged, i.e. that organizations must consider all internal and external issues that may affect the effectiveness of their management system. These new amendments require climate change to be considered within the management system as an external factor important to society as a whole.
Because the general objective of the requirement remains unchanged, and the new changes are treated as an explanation and not as a new requirement, it is considered that no transition period is needed in this case.
Certified organizations are expected to ensure that all internal and external issues are determined to be relevant or not, and if so, to be taken into account in the development and effectiveness of the management system, as required in Clauses 4.1 and 4.2.
Certification bodies should also include changes checks during the verification of requirements from Clauses 4.1, i.e. organization and its context, and 4.2, i.e. identification of interested parties. In the event that the certified organization cannot prove that all relevant external and internal issues, including climate change, have been considered, an appropriate finding should be made.
Accreditation bodies should, as part of the ongoing accreditation cycle, ensure that certification bodies confirm that certified clients have taken into account aspects of climate change in their management systems along with other aspects of Clauses 4.1 and 4.2.
ISS, in its Decision on the Adoption and Withdrawal of Serbian Standards and Related Documents of 30 April, 2024, published 14 amendments to Serbian standards for management systems as separate documents. These amendments are identical to the international amendments and are applied together with the previously published basic Serbian standard and form an integral part of it.
Amendments to Serbian standards for management systems that are identical to amendments to European standards will be adopted when published at the European level.