Global Community

Climate change is no longer a distant issue, it is directly influencing the way organisations must think about quality, health, safety, and environmental (QHSE) management systems. From disrupted supply chains and shifting regulatory frameworks to climate-related health and safety risks and the need for sustainable product/service design, the context within which we manage risk and assure performance is rapidly evolving.

Standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, and industry-specific frameworks now require us to anticipate and respond to external risks and opportunities. Yet, the question of competence-our ability to develop resilient systems, apply integrated risk-based thinking, and adapt to the climate challenge, remains front and centre.

How should organisations and professionals strengthen their management systems and competencies to address the risks, opportunities, and shifting context created by climate change to ensuring quality, health, safety, and environmental objectives remain effective and future-fit?

Climate change should be included in Risks and Opportunities Analysis. 

A reliable tool/processus of Risks and Opportunities should be implemented to manage effectively climate change potential/cuurent issues.

I agree that climate change is a risk, especially if the equipment needs to be in a constant temperature and humidity range.  This includes when and how often the doors (both man-doors and industrial doors). And for health and safety reasons, I hope that factories address the climate for personnel both in the office and on the floor.

Organizations should integrate climate risks into strategic planning, strengthen competence through training in standards and sustainability, and break down silos between QHSE and core business functions. Leveraging digital tools and fostering a culture of continuous improvement will ensure systems remain resilient, effective, and adaptable to future challenges.

The competence question is interesting, and a great frustration for everyone in the industry. The problem is essentially an economic one; with services turned into products and commoditised to be cheap, to win more work. Its reasonable for people to choose the cheapest option, as nobody measures the cost of poor quality. Every system that I have worked, consulted, or audited is haunted by inherited templates from somewhere.

This will be solved by a new wave of software and though leaders, removing templated documents with functioning systems. Its just frustrating having to wait.

As for the climate change lens; I disagree.

The time horizon for climate change is so far into the future that businesses cannot effectively plan to control or influnce outcomes within their scope. We cannot measure or model into the future with all of the variables to know whether any business actions are worth the effort and resources. Disrupted supply chains are from many system and special causes. Not from climate change. The inefficiency of the focus on climate change, with little or no measureable impact is counter to the climate change and environmental ethos. So much input of time, money, and resources are effectively wasted. My experience with climate change with clients is polar between banning single use plastics (not climate change related), to creative carbon accounting and abatement (inefficient and rentseeking IMO). Both dont work, and are windowdressing at best.

Demographic collapse and changes to labour force, Political changes, AI, Cyber security, Drones and the impact on US Naval projection (Security on the seas), Major conflicts and wars, Pandemics, etc. will all occur prior to climate change, which we may not notice, and will drastically affect business in the moment, not some blurry horizon.

I agree with the inclusion of the ammendment for considering climate change in clause 4.1 and 4.2, however I see this as more likely a customer requirement for most Companies, with compliance obligations set by governments and regulators. The reason I agree with the ammendment is because it is an opportunity to open the lens to inputs to planning, which has often become very narrow.

Clause 4.1 (and the ammendmant) asks the Company to determine the relevance of climate change to the Company's purpose, strategic direction, and its affect on the ability to achive the desired results. In this framework, I would support decisions of it being not relevant. It is specifically in 4.1, not 6.1, as it is monolithic and may contain sub-risks and sub-opportunities. But the clause isnt asking for risk assessments; its asking whether it is relevant or not.

Same for Clause 4.2.

These clauses are about determining inputs to planning, and besides marketing, goverment/regulatory obligations, and customer requirements (their marketing and goverment/regulatory obligations), I dont see it as being an issue.

We are fortunate that Demming gave us the PDCA cycle, which is at the core of the way in which we apply systems theory. we need to consider this under two lenses, the impact positive and negative that we can have on climate change including the reduction of GHG emissions and getting to net zero asap, as well as the impact of climate change on our own businesses and the potential disruptors that are business may face as well as opportunities. The ISO standards are designed to be flexible, and our systems should have been designed to be flexible enough to deal with climate change as well as other emerging issues / priorities. We need to just use our systems.