Earlier this year the International Standards Organisation released amendments to ISO 45001 Occupational health and safety management systems — Requirements with guidance for use and ISO 9001 Quality management systems — Requirements to require explicit consideration of climate change.
In both standards, the following requirement has been added to section 4.1:
The organization shall determine whether climate change is a relevant issue.
And under section 4.2, the following note is added:
NOTE Relevant interested parties can have requirements related to climate change
With natural and human-induced factors prompting long-term changes to the Earth’s climate and weather conditions – and locally we are experiencing changing weather patterns and more severe weather impacts – the amendments recognise that organisations need to give explicit consideration to these impacts in the context of business operations.
Essentially, the amendments are prompts to consider whether climate change is a relevant issue for the organisation OR interested parties (stakeholders), and if it is relevant, to determine what action(s) are required in response.
There is no expectation from the amended standards to solve climate change. Rather, management is required to consider the impacts of climate change on organisational risks, operations, supply chains, etc.
Likely climate change impacts will be completely different for different industries and geographical locations, hence the importance of each organisation independently considering the risks in their own context.
Within Australia, QRMC recommends that a good starting point in considering the climate impacts may be to peruse the 2-yearly CSIRO State of the Climate report which can be accessed here.
Please contact QRMC for more information or assistance.
