ISO 9001 is the standard that deals with quality management systems and offers organizations a systematic approach to achieving customer objectives and providing consistent quality. ISO 14001, on the other hand, deals with environmental management systems and proposes to organizations a systemic approach to measuring and improving their environmental impact.
These are the first and second most widespread and adopted standards in the world by organizations, given that they cover two such important sectors. The two standards ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 share the "Plan-Do-Check-Act" structure that we have already discussed in the past and have many similarities even if they do not align perfectly point by point.
The similarities between ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 consist of the document system, aiming for continuous improvement, maintaining records, providing training and education, conducting regular reviews, applying corrective actions, and management control. ISO 14001 is less prescriptive because there is no set "benchmark" to evaluate your organization's performance against others.
If customers, in fact, have specific requirements for a product or service and ISO 9001 helps to improve results compared to their expectations, each organization has a different impact on the environment, so ISO 14001 does not have a minimum level to meet.
Environmental impact can only be measured as a snapshot on a given day and therefore improved from there. Given the many similarities, organizations often tend to combine the two standards into an integrated management system to exploit the benefits of the two approaches.