The Royal Life Saving Society UK (RLSS UK) is proud to announce it has been UKAS accredited as ISO 14001 compliant.

05/04/2023

The charity is committed to its environmental responsibilities, and its 2020 five-year strategy included steps to become carbon neutral as a key goal and thread through all of its activities.

ISO 14001 specifies the requirements for an environmental management system that an organisation can use to enhance its environmental performance. It is intended for use by an organisation seeking to manage its environmental responsibilities in a systematic way, contributing to the environmental pillar of sustainability.

This can include anything from waste disposal processes to businesses a company works with and their policies, as well as sourcing products and even which light bulbs are used in offices!

RLSS UK Chief Executive Officer, Robert Gofton, led the project. He said: “Setting our ambitions to reducing the organisation’s impact on the environment firmly in our strategy led us to consider implementing an environmental management system to help us achieve our aim.

“This was supported by our stakeholders and customers who were eager to see us take action to protect the environment, so we decided to pursue a standard like ISO 14001.

“As a charity, we are committed to becoming carbon neutral and are particularly concerned about the issue of microplastics in water. We're taking steps to minimise and eventually eliminate single-use plastics throughout our organisation.”

RLSS UK formed a task force in 2022 to ensure the charity became ISO 14001 compliant and the team will continue this work into the future.

Robert added: “Looking at ISO 14001 enabled us to explore what we already had in place and where we could improve.

“We approached the British Accreditation Bureau (BAB), for its advice on certification consultants and decided to proceed with Compliant.

“Initial meetings with Mark from Compliant showed that we had a lot of the processes already in place, which was great news. We worked on a GAP analysis which enabled us to fine-tune the management pack and identify anything missing and we are so pleased we now have robust records and processes in place. We will continue to build on this and consider and reduce our environmental impact in everything we do.”

Compliant Director Mark Henderson said: “We are keen to support charities in their ISO journeys and helping RLSS UK to become ISO 14001 certified has been a great privilege for us.

“Robert and the team have been fantastic, and knowing that such an important business is taking its environmental impact so seriously is great. We look forward to seeing how their business changes and how having ISO 14001 in place will have a positive impact on the environment. Well done everyone.”