Articles and Presentations Library
How Good is your Certification Auditor?
As a seasoned professional, your certification auditor should be a first-hand example of best practice and competence in the field of EMS auditing. Is that a true statement? I really do not know, so I ask the question! Why not e-mail me your responses (in confidence of course and without naming any names) and I will comment on this later.
There are a number of important functions that the certification auditor undertakes. Most obviously, during the initial audit, the management system is checked to see that all the requirements of ISO 14001 have been addressed. Additionally, the auditor should be satisfied that the requirements of applicable environmental legislation have been captured by the organisation. The auditor should also assess the process of evaluating the environmental aspects. Whilst the latter two activities are part of the overall assessment of the EMS to the requirements of ISO 14001, their importance may sometimes be underplayed in favour of other system elements such as ‘document control’ or ‘communications’ that present less complexity or liability issues. Of course, all elements must be checked during an audit of this type, but the legal and aspect registers play a pivotal role in the EMS and the approach to the assessment of these areas reveals a great deal about the competency of the certification auditor.
An EMS audit is almost always undertaken over a relatively short timescale and the auditor is usually required to assign priorities with regard to the items to check within the limited time available to carry out the work. Hence the need for a timetable and checklist. The auditor should be seen to investigate a fully representative sample within all the significant areas of risk and verify that they are under control and within the scope of the EMS. By doing this, the auditor ensures that the ‘big issues’ have been assessed and surely this has to represent the ‘best practice’ that I mentioned above.
At the start of a certification assessment, the auditor should consider issues such as the need for a PPC permit, the management of waste streams, drainage issues, compliance to the discharge consent and a range of other potential legal requirements. During an audit, I am always looking to see how effectively the environmental manager assesses compliance to environmental legislation and how the requirements of the law are translated into company procedures and work instructions. I am also keen to check that the aspect evaluation includes all the issues that are important to the company. The certification auditor may check that the items included on the register have procedures that are appropriate and implemented, but more importantly, the auditor should be looking for items that are NOT on the register but which should be. That is a more difficult task because the evidence needed to answer that question has to be accumulated from the audit itself. All the skills of the auditor are required in order to track, assess and present this information and a measure of the competency of your EMS certification auditor could be based on the way this assessment is communicated.
John Marsden (FIEMA)
info@marsden-international.com
John is an independent management system auditor who works for a number of international certification bodies.
