ISO 14001 is one of many standards employed by companies today to guide their environmental strategies. It's been around for a decade now. And although over 300,000 businesses around the world currently follow this ever-evolving voluntary standard, one of the criticisms leveled against ISO 14001 is that it hasn't been a strong enough driver of change. In particular, critics compare the tepid overall impacts of ISO 14001 to how robustly the ISO 9001 standard has impacted product quality. It's likely that ISO drafters took these criticisms to heart in their scheduled 5-year review of the standard.

Here's a snapshot of the proposed changes. 

The newest version of ISO 14001 is set to be published sometime in the second half of 2015. When finalized, it will supersede the 2009 version. 

• If you work for an organization currently following the ISO 14001 guidelines, your company will have one year from the publishing date to make any necessary adjustments. The changes to the current standard are not monumental and conforming should not present an insurmountable challenge for any company. Nevertheless, changes will need to be made and the process should begin now with understanding what the new standard will require.

• Notably, there is a heightened push for organizations to try to have a positive impact on the environment, rather than simply not having a negative impact. Furthermore, the scope of the standard has been broadened to drive companies to look beyond their own operations. This is apparent right from the beginning by the fact that the terms "supply chain", "value chain", and "product life cycle" have been added to the key concepts.

The committee tasked with modifying the standard has also made a concerted effort to make it easier for small and medium enterprises with fewer resources to participate.

Together these alterations take ISO 14001 further in the direction of helping companies drive environmental awareness and action into the heart of their operations and throughout the value chain.