How to Address ISO's New Climate Change Requirements?
William A. Levinson, P.E., FASQ, CFPIM is the principal of Levinson
Productivity Systems, P.C. He is an ASQ Certified Quality Engineer,
Quality Auditor, Quality Manager, Reliability Engineer, and Six Sigma
Black Belt, and the author of several books on quality, productivity,
and management.
ISO 9001:2015's successor, and other ISO standards, will soon include clauses related to climate change. The good news is that, if your organization already has a process to address risks to continuity of operations, including risks associated with climate-driven weather events, it is probably doing most if not all of what it needs to do to meet the new requirements. It is however important to not divert supply chain resources to costly and possibly ineffective efforts to stop climate change. Actions to remove energy wastes, on the other hand, benefit all stakeholders (employees, investors, customers, and suppliers) and also reduce carbon emissions.
Attendees will receive a PDF copy of the slides and accompanying notes.
Learning Objectives
- Know that many ISO standards including ISO 9001 will require that organizations determine whether climate change is relevant to the objectives of their quality management systems, and also that relevant interested parties may have requirements related to climate change. These requirements fortunately do not include commitments to costly de-carbonization or Net Zero agendas.
- Climate change is important but not urgent. It is important because it is a fact of nature, and climate-driven weather events can affect continuity of operations. It is not urgent because (1) throwing money at it to try to stop it is likely to be as futile as King Canute's command that the tide not come in and (2) many who say it is urgent do not walk their talk when they use private jets to attend climate conferences. There is meanwhile serious controversy over the sale of carbon offsets, which can be regarded as a waste of supply chain resources.
- Benjamin Franklin told us long ago that a penny saved is a penny earned, and now a kilowatt-hour saved is the cost of a kilowatt-hour earned. Elimination of energy waste from the supply chain, as supported by the ISO 50001:2018 standard for energy management systems, enables lower prices, higher wages, and higher returns for investors. Even if the energy saved is renewable, it is probably fungible via the power grid with fossil fuels and therefore represents fewer carbon emissions.
- Climate change does influence weather including hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, and snowstorms that can disrupt supply chains and impede continuity of operations. Low water levels in the Gatun Reservoir have even caused delays in the Panama Canal. If one's supply chain is vulnerable to these events, climate change is indeed relevant and these risks need to be identified and mitigated.
- Avoid, however, dysfunctional use of supply chain resources on (for example) purchase of carbon offsets from direct air capture (DAC) in which chemical plants extract carbon dioxide from the air to sequester it underground. This is expensive and, to put it in perspective, people who want to offset their carbon emissions are quite free to donate money to the US Forest Service to plant trees. These direct air capture plants (literally plants) appear to be far more cost-effective for the indicated purpose, and the US Forest Service has no profit motive.
Disclaimer; no part of this presentation constitutes formal engineering advice.
Who Should Attend
Manufacturing and quality professionals with responsibility for addressing the requirements of ISO standards.
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$200.00
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