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Sterling Gains ISO 14001:2004
November 2006
Accepted by more than 80 nations as the ultimate management standards for product and service quality and environmental management, the ISO 9001:2000 (Quality) and ISO 14001:2004 (Environmental) registrations have required a significant commitment on the part of Sterling’s 100+ staff since first achieving registration to ISO 9001:2000 in 1995.
The important milestone of achieving registration to ISO 14001:2004 was achieved in less than a year.
The implementation process began back in January 2006. Sterling passed the certification audits in November 2006. An outside, ISO accreditation organisation will continue to audit performance bi-annually on both registrations.
“We were able to achieve registration so quickly because we’ve been implementing a high level of environmental control over our own business for several years and also ensure that our suppliers and the production materials we use are environmentally sensitive” said Chris Timm (Marketing Director).
In achieving the ISO 14001:2004 registration, Sterling has instituted practises and procedures that support the company’s environmental commitments: to reduce electricity consumption over the first half year 2006/2007, to send no more than 20% of all waste produced by volume to landfill, to meet all legal requirements and continually reduce the company’s impact upon the environment.
“Our new site has many innovative environmental benefits, in terms of its construction, efficient waste extraction, energy saving lighting and emissions control systems, we felt that the ISO 14001:2004 registration would be a great way to promote the move to the new site” said Jay Worsfold (Quality Systems Manager).
Today, a continuous improvement programme is embedded in the company’s quality programme, the benefits are already starting to bear fruit, skip collections have been reduced by 50% and waste paper recycling is up by over one and a half tonnes.