In February 2024 the IAF/ISO published the following

BPR Consulting News

In February 2024 the IAF/ISO published the following:

Addition of Climate Change considerations to the Management Systems Standards

Any organisation certified to management systems standards including ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018 will have to consider the following additional requirements:

4.1 Understanding the organization and its context.

The organization shall determine external and internal issues that are relevant to its purpose and that affect its ability to achieve the intended result(s) of its XXX management system.

Added: The organization shall determine whether climate change is a relevant issue.

4.2 Understanding the needs and expectations of interested parties.

The organization shall determine:

• the interested parties that are relevant to the XXX management system.
• the relevant requirements of these interested parties.
• which of these requirements will be addressed through the XXX management system.

Added: NOTE: Relevant interested parties can have requirements related to climate change.

The intent is to ensure Climate Change issues are considered by organisations in the context of the effectiveness of their management system. The overall intent of the requirements for clauses 4.1 and 4.2 remain unchanged: these clauses already include the need for organisations to consider all internal and external issues that can impact the effectiveness of their management system.

Revision of ISO 9001:2026

The revised ISO 9001 is expected to be published in December 2025. The following could be included:

• Integration of emerging technologies, including the rapid increase in digitization and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in automated decision marking.
• Inclusion of ethics and integrity and alignment with company decisions, actions and interactions with stakeholders.
• Expansion of the concept of customer satisfaction to become the entire customer experience.
• Renewed focus on quality assurance (this could also lead to increased customer pressure to get ISO 9001 certified, a development that ISO would certainly appreciate).
• Clarifications for service providers and strengthening service requirements (some even suggest a separate standard for services).
• Further clarifications that the QMS is an integral part of the business processes.

It is unlikely that there will be major changes as the mandated high-level structure limits the possible innovation.

August 2024