Management system guidance
7.4 Communication
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7.4.1 General
Clause 7.4.1 requires your organization to set up, run and keep up to date the process(es) it needs for communicating, both internally and externally, about the environmental management system (EMS). For each type of communication the process should settle four questions: what will be communicated, when, to whom and how.
When designing the process, your organization must take its compliance obligations into account (some communications are mandatory, such as permit reporting to a regulator) and make sure that any environmental information it puts out is reliable and consistent with the information produced inside the EMS – for example, the figures quoted in a sustainability report should match the monitoring data held under 9.1.1. The organization must also respond to relevant communications it receives about its EMS, and appropriate documented information must be available as evidence of its communications.
What changed in ISO 14001:2026
The requirement is unchanged in substance. The only wording change is that evidence of communications must now be “available as documented information” rather than “retained”. Annex A.7.4 has been expanded: it notes the growing demand for environmental and sustainability disclosure, encourages two-way engagement with suppliers and customers across the product life cycle, highlights prompt, clear handling of complaints, and adds “timely” to the list of communication principles. Communication about changes is also linked to the new clause 6.3 Planning of changes.
Building a communication process
A simple way to meet this clause is a communication matrix or plan (often a single table) that lists each EMS-related communication and records:
- What – the topic, e.g. environmental policy, significant environmental aspects, objectives and progress, legal reporting, incidents and emergencies, audit results, changes to the EMS;
- When – frequency or trigger, e.g. monthly, annually, on change, after an incident, within a statutory deadline;
- With whom – the internal levels and functions or external interested parties concerned, e.g. employees, contractors, regulators, neighbors, customers, investors, suppliers;
- How – the channel, e.g. briefings, toolbox talks, intranet, notice boards, e-mail, website, permit returns, annual report;
- Who is responsible – the owner who prepares, approves and issues the communication, and where the record is kept.
Use your work on 4.2 Interested parties and 6.1.3 Compliance obligations as the main input: every relevant interested party, and every obligation that carries a reporting or notification duty, should appear somewhere in the matrix.
Principles of good environmental communication
Annex A suggests that what your organization communicates should be:
- Transparent – open about how reported information has been derived;
- Timely – issued while it is still useful to the recipient;
- Appropriate – in a format, language and medium that suits the audience and lets them take part;
- Truthful – not misleading to anyone relying on it (avoid unsupported “green” claims);
- Factual and accurate – based on data that can be trusted and traced back to EMS records;
- Complete – not leaving out relevant information, including unfavorable results;
- Understandable – clear to the people it is aimed at.
Further guidance on environmental communication is available in ISO 14063.
Responding to communications
Communication works in both directions. Interested parties may ask for specific information, make complaints (for example about noise, odour or dust) or offer positive feedback. Set up a simple log to record incoming environmental communications, who is handling each one, the response given and the date. Complaints deserve a prompt and clear answer, and analysing them over time can reveal opportunities for improvement. Decide in advance who is authorized to speak for the organization, particularly to regulators and the media, and how enquiries are escalated.
Keeping evidence
The standard asks for “appropriate” documented information, so you do not need to record every conversation. Typical evidence includes the communication matrix, minutes of briefings and meetings, copies of regulatory returns and notifications, website or report content, the external communications log and records of responses to complaints. See 7.5 Documented information for how this evidence should be controlled.
You should seek and record evidence that your organization has established a communication process covering what, when, with whom and how it communicates about the EMS; that compliance obligations were considered when setting it up; that information communicated is consistent with EMS data and reliable; that relevant communications received have been answered; and that appropriate documented information is available as evidence of its communications. Interview staff and check a sample of communications against the plan to confirm that the process works in practice. The detailed requirements for each direction are covered in 7.4.2 Internal communication and 7.4.3 External communication.
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