Environment

Increased awareness of sustainable development gives environmentally credible companies a competitive edge in national and international markets. A certified environmental management system proves that your business is taking active steps to fulfil your responsibilities.

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Purpose

Expectations towards organisations reducing their direct environmental impacts and influencing supplier environmental performance are growing. Regulations and law enforcement are also getting stricter with customers, regulatory bodies, and other stakeholders increasingly demanding demonstration of environmental performance and improvement.

Environmental management systems take a systematic approach to minimising negative impacts on the environment and surrounding community. They provide a framework for an organization to manage its legal compliance and improve environmental performance, including risk and opportunity identification, analysis, target setting, and measurement.

ISO 14001 is the most common and globally recognised standard for environmental management systems and is applicable to any organisation in any business sector.

DNV also offers the following environmental management schemes globally:

Verification according to EMAS (The Eco Management and Audit Scheme). This voluntary scheme is applicable to organizations in the European Union and the European Economic Area.
Certification of Forest Stewardship Council – Chain of Custody (FSC-CoC) system. The FSC scheme for sustainable forest management aim to ensure that the harvest of timber and non-timber products maintains the forest's biodiversity, productivity and ecological processes. Chain of Custody is the path taken by raw materials harvested from a FSC-certified source through processing, manufacturing, distribution and printing until it is a final product ready for sale to the end customer. A Chain of Custody certificate and FSC labelled products provides assurance that products are compliant with the FSC policies.

Some units also hold national accreditation for forest certification according to the PEFC-standards (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes).

Contact our local office for more information on national standard schemes.

Benefits

Implementing an effective environmental management system can significantly reduce the impact of your organisation’s activities on the environment, improve operational efficiency, identify opportunities for cost savings and reduce environmental liability.

The main drivers for organisations to implement an environmental management system and seek certification are:

Demonstration of responsibility towards the environment
An effective framework for regulatory compliance
Contractual obligations or expectations in a business-to-business relationship
A competitive market advantage through enhanced image and increased stakeholder confidence

Features

Certification of your environmental management system by DNV provides assurance to the market of your effective management of environmental performance and demonstrates commitment to customers with similar objectives.

DNV experience of environmental management and certification of management systems is extensive.

With our Risk Based Certification™ approach, DNV auditors focus on how well your environment management system supports the areas of greatest risk and interest to you, in addition to measuring compliance against elected standards. Our auditors know the business you are in and will apply their experience in ways that will improve and add value.

DNV Risk Based Certification™ is offered worldwide and DNV holds a wide range of national accreditations. With our global network of local resources, we provide you with the certification most suitable to your needs, type of business, and company location.

Environmental management system certification may be combined with certification to other management system standards, e.g. ISO 9001 and OHSAS 18001.