Continual improvement is both the purpose and the outcome of the environmental management system. Clause 10.3 requires organizations to continually improve the suitability, adequacy, and effectiveness of the EMS to enhance environmental performance. The 2015 revision clarified that the focus must be on improving actual environmental performance, not just system conformance.
The PDCA Cycle
The Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle is the foundational model driving continual improvement in ISO 14001:2015:
PDCA Applied to ISO 14001
- Plan (Clauses 4, 5, 6): Establish context, leadership framework, aspects, and objectives
- Do (Clauses 7, 8): Implement through training, communication, operational controls, and emergency preparedness
- Check (Clause 9): Evaluate through monitoring, internal audits, and management review
- Act (Clause 10): Improve through corrective action and continual improvement initiatives
Sources of Improvement Opportunities
Improvement opportunities emerge from every element of the EMS cycle:
- Monitoring and measurement trends showing areas of declining performance
- Internal audit observations and findings
- Corrective action root cause analysis revealing systemic issues
- Management review decisions
- Employee suggestions and communication feedback
- Industry benchmarking and best practice sharing
- Technology advances and new environmental solutions
- Regulatory changes and emerging stakeholder expectations
Measuring Improvement
Demonstrate continual improvement through tracked environmental performance indicators over time (energy use, emissions, waste generation, water consumption), year-over-year comparison of objective achievement rates, reduction in nonconformity recurrence rates, improvement in compliance evaluation results, and enhanced maturity of EMS processes over audit cycles.
Common Pitfalls
- Focusing on system conformance improvements rather than environmental performance
- No systematic method for capturing and evaluating improvement ideas
- Improvement initiatives not tracked or resourced
- Claiming improvement without measurable evidence
