ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 Certification: What does it all mean?

Poynton Bradbury Architects have achieved ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certification in recognition of the Environmental and Quality Management systems that we have in place to keep us efficient, organised and continually striving to protect the planet.

ISO 9001 Quality Management System

ISO 9001 is the standard used by businesses worldwide to implement Quality Management Systems (QMS) that can be utilised to increase organisational efficiency, reduce costs and win client trust. The standard is based upon seven principles: customer focus, leadership, engagement of people, process approach, improvement, evidence-based decisions and relationship management.

Going through the certification process for ISO 9001 has helped us drive improvements to employee training, development and communication. The standard’s process approach and focus on improvement ensures we make the time to regularly review and ensure these processes work.

The ISO 9001 standard has also helped us keep ahead of the curve of the ever changing statutory and regulatory requirements that apply to the construction industry. Setting up systems that check our compliance will ultimately help our clients and ensure better quality, compliant buildings that are built more safely.

Undergoing ISO 9001 certification has also given us an excellent roadmap for evaluating supplier performance. Making use of the standard gives us a recognised, fair and transparent way to assess how well the partnerships in our business are going, ensuring our clients recieve the best possible service from both ourselves and our suppliers.

ISO 14001 Environmental Management System

ISO 14001 sets out the criteria for our environmental management system. It maps out the framework that we follow to set up an effective environmental management system. It provides assurance to company management and employees as well as external stakeholders that environmental impact is being measured and improved.

We recognise that our in house operations impact upon the environment and understand the significant impact our services can have on the environment. Our aim is to provide an excellent professional service whilst looking to reduce both our, and our projects’, impact on the environment.

ISO 14001 certification helps us seek continual improvements to our environmental performance and target pollution prevention through both our design solutions and best working practices. We are committed to ensuring that we comply fully with and, where possible, go beyond current environmental legislation.

New buildings can have an enormous impact on the environment, from the sourcing of raw material and embodied carbon of their constituent materials, through to their energy performance and sustainability during use and return to circular economy at the end of their lifetime.

We assess all projects against the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge Sustainable Outcome target metrics and in order to meet these targets we utilise material databases like Greenspec, to specify independently approved sustainable materials for our projects.

We also feel it is important to define sustainability in the widest sense, in order to maximise the social, economic and environmental benefits of all our projects.

Our ISO 14001 Environmental Management Plan helps us accomplish these aims and ensures we are regularly audit and review our achievements.