1. General

ISO 14001:2015 sets out the criteria for an environmental management system and can be certified to.

It maps out a framework that a company or organization can follow to set up an effective environmental management system. It can be used by any organization regardless of its activity or sector. To have credibility, accredited certification needs competent auditors. To be efficient and competitive, business and industry needs competent auditors. The purpose of our Environmental Management Systems Auditor Certification Program is to provide confidence to accredited certification and to business and industry that auditors certified to this program are competent. As part of the certification process we will evaluate you against requirements which reflect the key skills, knowledge and experience that define competence and which you, the EMS auditor, need to have and demonstrate during an audit. The EMS Programme is based on the auditing key standard:

ISO 14001:2015, Environmental Management Systems –

Requirements and the auditing guidance standard:

ISO 19011:2011, Guidelines for auditing management systems

3. Environmental Management System Auditor Requirements

1) Basic Requirements

* The requirements of training certificate are as followings:

2) Environmental Management System Auditor Scheme, Specific (Additional) Requirements

Understand the interaction of organization’s activities, products, services and operations with the environment is the most important part of competency as an EMS auditor. Environmental science and technology can enable to auditor for the understanding of the fundamental relationships between human activities and the environmental aspects.

Environmental auditor should have knowledge for environmental management methods and techniques that enable auditor to examine environmental management systems and to generate appropriate audit findings and conclusions.

EMS audit team must have the following 10 knowledge competencies as EMS audit team member:

Audit teams also need to have a sound understanding of aspects, monitoring and measurement, and operational control in the following environment-related areas:

As part of the certification process GPC will evaluate applicant against requirements which reflect the key skills, knowledge and experience that define competence which need to have and demonstrate during an audit.

4. Examination

The exam consists of two types of written exams, Knowledge exam and Attribution test.

The exam is performed at a place that GPC evaluated and finally approved in advance, and generally it starts at 10:00 am on Saturday (it will be notified prior to the exam).

The applicants should be arrived at the examination site at least 10 minutes before the start and if late or absent, 0 score is automatically given.

Any ID with picture on it for the identification of the candidate has to be presented, and any prohibited items at the examination site have to be left with the invigilator before the star of the exam.

If cheating is detected, the invigilator will ask the candidate to leave immediately and no more exam is allowed.

Please see the exam notification for the details about the examination location and contact information.

2) Knowledge exam

This exam questions were set up based on ISO 14001:2015 standard and the purpose of the exam is to evaluate the qualifications and competence of the candidate who wants to conduct audit activity by the standard the candidate is applying for.

The knowledge exam has a total of 100 questions and consists of 4 sections divided.

1 point for 1 correct answer and the pass criteria is as follows.

* Even if the total points are more than 70 points, the applicant cannot pass the exam without meeting the minimum points required for each section.

Time limitation is only 120 minutes for the examination and it is open-book condition.

If one is failed in the exam, candidate is given one more chance of examination. If candidate fails to the consecutive examination, the candidate has to wait another year to take examination.

3) Attribution test

The purpose of the attribution test is to evaluate the characteristics and the qualification as an auditor and it asks how much the application understandable agree with the questions.

It is based on ISO 19011:2011 and consists of 25 questions only. The candidate should choose the answer that comes to mind first.

Up to 4 points are given for each question and as the answer is further from the correct answer, 1 point each is deducted. (0 point for no answer)

The pass criterion is 70 points

If one is failed in the test, another chance of attribution interview is given. If candidate fails to the attribution interview, candidate has to wait another year to take an test.