ISO 14001 Internal Auditor Training

Clause 9.2 of ISO 14001:2015 requires internal audits at planned intervals to establish two things: whether the environmental management system conforms to the organisation's own requirements and to the standard, and whether it is effectively implemented and maintained. That short requirement carries most of the assurance load in an EMS. The internal audit programme is how management — and later the certification body — finds out whether the system described in the manual is the system operating at the tank farm, the workshop and the waste yard. This course qualifies you to run it.

The programme works through clauses 4 to 10 in the order an auditor meets them, treating the EMS as a system rather than a checklist: context and scope, leadership and policy, environmental aspects and impacts including the life cycle perspective and significance criteria, compliance obligations, objectives, competence and communication, operational control including contractors and outsourced processes, emergency preparedness, monitoring, evaluation of compliance under 9.1.2, and nonconformity and corrective action under 10.2. For every clause you are shown what documented information should exist and how to sample it. Three further modules cover the audit cycle in the terms of ISO 19011:2018 — programme, plan, checklist, opening meeting, interviewing, evidence, findings, closing meeting, report, corrective action and verification — including nonconformity writing using problem, location and requirement, and the grading distinction between major, minor and opportunity for improvement.

It is written for EHS officers, engineers, supervisors, management representatives and consultants who will actually deliver internal audits, not merely commission them. Afterwards you can build a risk-based audit programme, plan and lead an audit day, gather defensible objective evidence, write findings that survive challenge, and verify corrective action to closure.

Assessment is a 30-question online exam with a 70% pass mark. Successful learners receive a verifiable SKEDMIA certificate. Approximately 14.5 hours of self-paced study.