One of the disruptive points with interpretation of ISO 14001:2004 Standard and other quality and environmental standards is control of forms. Many companies treat forms in a different way than procedures, instructions or other documents.
ISO 14001:2004, element 4.4.5, instructs an organization to control documents required by the EMS and the standard. While some companies often try to justify not controlled forms, let’s find out if forms are the same as “documents” and if they also should be controlled.
Tables and table-based forms are frequently used as lower-level documents. Often, it is not needed to write a conventional instruction with the purpose, scope and instructions if a simple table can do a job. One of the typical non-conformities that companies get during their audits of their ISO 14001 environmental management systems is against forms that are not part of the environmental documentation system.
