Which two of the following statements apply to a Stage 2 certification audit plan?
An audit team leader arrives at a steel fabrication organisation that manufactures fire escape stairs to carry out a Stage 2 certification audit. At a meeting with the EMS Manager, she is told that they have won their biggest contract from a construction organisation to manufacture and install fire escape stairs. They appointed a subcontractor to perform the installation work. The EMS Manager wants the ISO 14001 audit extended to cover the installation site and has set environmental objectives for the subcontractor in line with the EMS policy below:
“It is the policy of the organisation to protect the environment by acting with responsibility at all times, to comply with relevant legislation and to set objectives that will enhance our environmental performance.”
The auditor seeks evidence of the awareness of subcontractor personnel of the environmental policy set by management.
From the following options, select two issues that all subcontractor personnel should be aware of relating to the organisation’s environmental policy.
A multi-level shopping centre is open every day to the public from 09:00-21:00. During an external audit of the centre to ISO 14001, you establish that there are 40 vending machines that are permanently switched on. Thirty of them do not sell perishable foodstuffs. You also note that there are eight escalators in the complex that run constantly during public access. When asked about environmental performance improvement objectives, the Centre Manager says that there are plans to increase the natural daylight by installing more skylights, thus saving on lighting costs, but the board has not yet approved the estimated budget for this.
You: I note that energy consumption is a significant environmental aspect in the centre. How do you mitigate the impacts of this?
EMS Manager: We try to reduce our energy costs by negotiating a better deal from the energy company. We are considering changing to one that only supplies electricity from renewable sources.
You: What steps have you taken to reduce overall consumption?
EMS Manager: We conducted awareness training for staff. For example, turning off lights in staff areas not being used.
You: I see that the escalators account for the highest usage of energy. Are there any objectives to try to reduce this?
EMS Manager: No, it would be too costly to change them.
You: How do you measure electricity consumption?
EMS Manager: We have meters installed on each floor of the centre. We take readings every hour, and we plot the consumption graph for every staff shift.
Select three options that would provide evidence of conformance with clause 9.1.1 of ISO 14001.
An oil organisation has a natural gas treatment plant on land crossed by several small rivers. On one particular day, after heavy rainfall for 48 hours, some of those rivers burst their banks and flooded the water treatment facilities of the plant. The oil-contaminated water reached some scarcely populated areas nearby.
Soon after, an internal audit was carried out to particularly analyse this event that was considered a nonconformity. There were no records of such heavy rainfall in the past 200 years.
Which three of the following actions are ' corrections ' ?
Which two of the following options are an advantage of using a sampling plan for the audit?
During a Stage 1 audit, the EMS Manager asks that the audit includes coverage of a new storage site on the other side of town that they have taken over since the application was made.
Which two of the following actions should the auditor take?
In the case of ISO 14001 EMS audits that follow the recommendations of ISO 19011, which two of the following statements are true?
You are conducting a Stage 2 certification audit of VitalSpark, a pharmaceutical organisation manufacturing vitamins and other healthcare medicines.
In a separate area in the centre of their large site, a supplier produces oxygen supplies piped directly into the manufacturing processes of VitalSpark. They also deliver oxygen in bulk tankers to other customers. When you review the environmental aspects register, you find that the only environmental aspect recorded for this arrangement relates to the heavy goods vehicles of the supplier transiting the site.
You ask the EMS Manager about the environmental consequences to VitalSpark of this arrangement and are told that they are not significant since the supplier has its own services for water, sewage, waste and energy. The EMS Manager tried unsuccessfully to communicate with the supplier who is located inside the VitalSpark site and outside the scope of the EMS.
After gathering more evidence, you note down findings against several clauses of ISO 14001. Determine which three of the findings stated are non-conformities.
An organisation has ISO 14001 EMS certification from a third-party certification body. Which one of the following represents an advantage of having accredited certification?
Auditors need to communicate effectively with auditees. Therefore, their personal behaviour is a key characteristic in ensuring a successful audit.
Below is a list of these characteristics and a brief related description. Match the characteristics to the descriptions.
A huge public library established an EMS following the requirements of ISO 14001, which was third-party certified 10 years ago. You are performing the second surveillance audit of the third certification cycle. The audit plan included an audit to the Director as the last interview before the closing meeting.
During the interview with the Director, you audit clause 6.2 (Objectives and planning to achieve them). The dialogue is as follows:
You: Could you please tell me which were the environmental objectives defined for last year and show evidence of their achievement?
Director: Yes. We had defined three objectives. As you can see from our Annual Plan, one of them was to separate our waste in four categories: paper, plastics, metals, food — before, we had only three (plastic and paper were disposed together). We developed an Action Plan to achieve this objective.
Which six of the questions would you ask related to the Action Plan?
What are the primary purposes of implementing an EMS based on ISO 14001:2015? Select two.
An internal auditor of a manufacturer of aluminium products for the car industry asked to see the most recent management review minutes and found no reference to the completion of some of the current environmental objectives. He raised a nonconformity against section 9.3.c of ISO 14001 in Report IA202. The nonconformity (NC3) stated:
" Top management has not analysed why some of the environmental objectives have been met since the last management review. "
When discussing the finding with the Environmental Manager, the auditor was informed that planned actions taken to complete the current environmental objectives were specifically covered in the internal audit programme and did not need any further work done.
Select one of the options which would constitute an effective response by the Environmental Manager to the nonconformity.
Just before the closing meeting of a third-party audit, the audit team leader is invited to a meeting with the EMS Manager.
He tells the audit team leader that a member of the audit team was seen taking videos on the factory floor using his mobile phone and wants him suspended from the closing meeting with any nonconformities raised by him rescinded.
When asked about this, the auditor said that he had obtained permission from the Production Manager who was escorting him around.
Select three options of how the audit team leader might respond to the EMS Manager.
Which one of the following conclusions in the audit report is not required by the certification body when deciding to grant certification?
Which one of the following is not part of the required knowledge of a technical expert appointed to an audit team?
Technical experts should know:
A group of 22 Italian restaurants in downtown San Francisco (US) established an EMS following the requirements of ISO 14001. You are performing an internal audit before the fourth certification cycle. The audit plan included an audit of the General Manager (GM) as the last interview before the closing meeting. During the interview with the GM, you audit clause 10.3 (Continual improvement). The dialogue is as follows.
You: Could you please tell me how did you improve the EMS to enhance environmental performance (Clause 10.3)?
GM: One way to improve the EMS is to improve one or several of its processes. We decided to improve the water-consuming processes in all our branches. We use water in many of our processes (e.g. to wash our kitchens, our cutlery, plates, and glasses, to keep our floors clean). The idea was to review these processes in detail to reduce the amount of water used per customer. Each of the 22 branches sent us their results, we analysed the data and found out that the average water consumption per customer was reduced by 13%; therefore, we improved our environmental performance. We are happy about that.
You: What about the results in each branch?
GM: Have a look at this table:
Analysing this table, what would be your decision related to raising nonconformities to clause 10.3? Select two.
Wash-it-up is an organisation that provides window cleaning services for the industrial sector. It has been certified to ISO 14001 for some time and has appointed a new EMS Manager. The audit plan during a surveillance audit includes the improvement actions and the auditor asks to see the most recent management review meeting minutes.
Which two statements would represent an input to the management review process?
You have been nominated as audit team leader for the second recertification to ISO 14001 of ABC, a public transport organisation in a big city. The audit is planned to take place in two months.
The audit program manager asks you to review the answer provided by ABC to a nonconformity raised by another auditor during the last surveillance audit carried out eight months ago.
The nonconformity reads as follows:
*“ABC does not always communicate its relevant environmental requirements to external providers. Evidence: A two-month contract signed with a new external provider of the maintenance for ABC’s buses did not contain any relevant environmental requirements.”*
Which two would you consider to be the best corrective actions from ABC?
