published on 15 April 2026, with an expected transition period of three years. This means that your certificate will remain valid until its expiry date, or until 14 April 2029 – whichever comes first.
The revised version focuses on the following areas:
- climate change, which is now a mandatory component,
- as well as the topics of biodiversity and ecosystem health, resource availability and levels of environmental pollution.
- A new structure for the cluster centred on the risk and opportunity analysis – which better reflects the overall planning context.
- Greater emphasis on the life-cycle perspective.
- The core statement that ISO 14001 serves as a management tool for top management to improve environmental performance and ensure compliance with legal obligations remains unchanged.
We recommend that you obtain a copy of ISO 14001:2026 to address any gaps in your management system resulting from the changes.
This means you have time to prepare for ISO 14001:2026; external assistance is available to support you in this process if you wish. Please get in touch with us when you are ready to carry out audits in accordance with the new version of the standard. We consider a regular surveillance or recertification audit to be a suitable time for this migration audit.
Before we can issue the usual certificates, the Swiss Accreditation Service (SAS) must approve the extension of QS Zürich AG’s accreditation in accordance with
ISO 14001:2026.