Posted By Descarte I would first go on the lead auditor course for 14001, you can then decide whether you want to run with this, or if you wish a consultant to do it. If the latter you will still be well placed to ensure everything is done to the correct standard and understand your responsibilities better and how you will be managing it on a day to day basis.

Posted By Haggis JM Go for it yourself, you know your company and its issues far better than any consultant. I've put in, and upgraded, several 14001 systems. Yes, I am passionate about the environment! It's what makes my work worthwhile...

Posted By David Matthew If you already have ISO 9001 some of your existing management procedures can be adapted to suit easing the burden slightly. Regards David

Posted By al wood brian i am currently involved with gaining iso 14001 accreditation for our company. we have managed to get a consultant on board whom has managed to secure some funding for us (although limited to around 15.5 hours of his time) but he is confident that we will gain accreditation within the funded hours time scale. having little or no environmantal experience prior to this it seemed the obvious route to go down. the whole process will probably have taken 3-4 months in total. if you would like his contact details please contact me directly.

Posted By Suffolkman Brian Others have put forward the idea of doing a lead auditors course as your best route i personnaly am not sure thats necessary, though a short awareness course would be useful. 14001 is a pretty straight forward standard and many of the requirements are the same as your existing QMS and SMS e.g Document control Audit, management review etc and can be easily adopted/ integrated A really good pointer to implementation in SME is provided by IEMA in their Acorn Scheme which includes a detailed implementation plan, that i doubt any consultant could better http://www.iema.net/ems/acorn_scheme And you have already achieved the first critical step... senior management commitment My experience of implementing Management Systems Q, H&S and E is that if you follow this sort of process and get some guidance take advice from your certification body who will make a series of visits - you can do this!! Though you may need further advice will be for specific environmental issues you may identify and can't resolve, and external advice will speed the process One of the biggest tricks is to keep it simple!! Good luck PS you have mail