The Factory Environmental Audit: this quality audit assesses your supplier’s current environmental activities such as waste disposal, waste storage, emissions to air and noise pollution.

A third party quality auditor, will assess the following:

ISO14001:15 – This is the international standard for implementing an environmental management system (EMS) for your household goods brand, the key thing to note here is that it is voluntary to comply with this standard.

This factory environmental audit system is based on the following key components:

• Context of the organization – This forces your hand to become more aware of how your production process currently affects the environment and what can be done to change this. This requires quite a bit of planning, but this kind of in-depth introspection will only benefit your organization.
• Leadership – There needs to be a greater focus and understanding of role and responsibility from leadership to achieve your set EMS objectives.
• Planning – Integrated and strategic planning processes need to be taken into consideration in light of best environmental practices moving forward.
• Support – This will determine what resources are made available such as training to ensure your supplier will meet its EMS objectives.
• Operation – How does your brand manage to implement EMS plans and processes to meet environmental objectives.
• Performance evaluation – This means that you continuously need to measure and analyze the performance and outcomes of your adopted EMS.
• Improvement – How will your brand deal with non-conformities? How is your brand committed to a continuous improvement quality cycle for your brand?