What it really means — and why it matters for your business There's no denying it: ESG reporting is exploding globally. But how does ESG actually connect with your EHS work? And what's the real upside of disclosing your carbon emissions? To unpack this properly, we leaned on two people who know their stuff: EcoOnline's SVP of ESG & Sustainabili...

Now I want to kick this post of with a caveat. Yes ISO9001 is changing. Yes there are lots of people out there telling you what they thinkk is changing and yes there is a lot of noise.  Here's the thing, they don't actually know for sure! ISO standards get updated on a regular basis and yes ISO9001 is currently coming to the end of that proces...

Every year, millions of people get sick from food that wasn't handled or processed safely — and most of it could have been prevented. That's where ISO 22000 steps in. It's the global standard that helps food businesses find risks before they become headlines. In this article, we'll break down the most common causes of foodborne illness and show how...

According to the World Economic Forum, climate-related disasters have caused over $3.6 trillion in damage since 2000. And without urgent action Global GDP could drop by up to 22% by 2100. Those numbers hit hard — and so do the images.Think Soluthern California wildfires in early 2025 – $250 billion gone, 40,000 acres destroyed. Or the 2020 flo...

Thinking about implementing ISO 22000? You're about to take a major step towards stronger food safety, smoother operations, and global credibility. But here's the truth: while ISO 22000 certification can be a game-changer, the road to getting there is often littered with hidden pitfalls that catch even experienced businesses off guard. From overloo...

Thinking about getting ISO 22000 certified? Smart move. ISO 22000:2018 is the international standard for Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS), helping businesses ensure product safety, meet regulatory requirements, and access larger (and more lucrative!) contracts. If you're wondering where to start, this beginner-friendly guide gives you a simple...

We have all seen them, pinned to noticeboards inside the company handbooks and, if you're lucky, as part of a presentation at your induction.  Unfortunately, by and large that is the limit most employees have in terms of the involvement with the Occupational Health & Safety Policy which is bizarre as it is the fundamental document of your ...

Most businesses these days have a crisis management plan or business continuity plan, because it's good business or perhaps the insurance company said so! They are there to ensure your team understand what to do in an emergency, how it's going to affect the business, who to contact and what plans you have in place to minimise the impact. But does y...

Almost every organisation you encounter will talk about leadership, how important it is to them and how they lead from the top. Sometimes, when you push a little and peel back the layers a bit, leadership and the commitment to having great leadership is perhaps not as ingrained in the company as they would have you believe. That's what clause 5.1 i...

On the fence about implementing ISO22000 for Food Safety? Let's be honest, no one dreams of running a food business or becoming a supplier in the food industry that ends up in the headlines for all the wrong reasons (think, food recalls and food poisoning scandals). It doesn't matter if you're whipping up gourmet snacks, bottling sauces, or process...

ISO45001:2018 Clause 4.3 is all about the scope of your Occupational Health & Safety Management System (OHSMS), so which parts of your organisation will be included within your system. Think about it a bit like drawing a box and putting all the parts of your organisation into it that you want to include - there may well be some parts you want t...

Food fraud is a real problem for us all, both manufacturers and consumers. Swapping out raw materials for cheaper alternatives or just out and out contaminating them is a serious issue and businesses need to take steps to counter any of this, so where do you start? Risk Assessments! Carrying out a VACCP/TACCP risk assessment is definitely best prac...

Understanding and documenting business risks is something that many just fail to do. They view them as a thing "only big businesses do" or a "corporate thing" but that's not the case. Managing business risks is an important step for any business, no matter how big or small, to consider all the risks to them keeping the doors open. This is a re...

I'm going to open with a bit of an inflammatory statement and hope you don't close the page, are you ready…  You are doing risk management wrong, and your business is suffering because of it. For that matter, I bet your whole ISO document structure is wrong! Now, while you calm down a bit here's a question, if I asked you how your risk managem...

Clause 4.2 – Understanding the needs and expectations of interested parties - is an important one and sets up your system information going forward. The details of your interested parties can drive everything from improvement to guiding management of change. While Clause 4.1 Understanding the organisation and its context is technically first, 4.2 g...

 ISO 45001:2018 Clause 4.4 is an interesting one, it's classed as a 'general clause' as it's pretty all encompassing, it says: The organisation shall establish, implement, maintain and continually improve an OH&S management system, including the processes needed and their interactions, in accordance with the requirements of this document I...

Climate change is a hot topic everywhere these days, and ISO is no exception. Its Climate Action Amendment has been added as a requirement in all management standards, regarding both risk assessment and stakeholder needs. This means it affects 9001, 14001, 45001, 27001, 22000 and 50001. Or in plain English, the standards for Quality, Environmental,...

Food fraud has been around a long time and is generally considered as "intentionally causing a mismatch between product claims and product characteristics" (everyone has their own definition!). For FSSC certification, Clause 2.5.4 calls for a Food Fraud Mitigation assessment and plan on how to minimize the risks, for very valid reasons. Sellers try...

We've posted previously about the frustration of badly managed change in a business, but what makes a truly useful change management system? Small teams can manage change reasonably simply, but once you start growing into multiple departments with multiple staff, it can be very hard to always get those needed in a room together to hash out every ch...

We've all been told that checklists are the answer!... tick this and your quality will be great, but have you checked in with your team? Are they sick of ticking boxes? Are you really sure your quality checks achieve what you need them to? Maybe it's time to reinvent your quality control system and fix up your check process to make it mor...

There are many myths in the world, ranging from Bigfoot to bumblebee's defying the laws of physics (they don't) and of course the Loch Ness Monster (who is just shy and wants to be left alone). It seems that myths are still very real in the world of work as well. Work-life balance is impossible, remote working is inefficient, workplace conflict can...

Ever wondered how you as food manufacturers or food retailers can ensure that every product you produce or sell is not only tasty, but also safe to eat? One of the key areas is supplier management. Let's have a nosy into what goes on to guarantee food safety for the consumer. 1. Choose Your Suppliers Wisely: It all starts with selecting suppliers y...

If you have read our blog for a while you will know that we hold the annual employee review with great distain, for many reasons it's in effective and does neither side of the equation any real benefit. When it comes time to sit down with the boss to do an employee review session what invariably happens is that, as an employee, you quickly dig out ...

Clause 4.1 of the ISO45001:2018 standard, Understanding the organisation and its context, can cause some trepidation, confusion, hand wringing and general bewilderment for people, I know when I first read it I thought WHAT THE!? but then I read it again (and again) and did some research and thought, actually I see what they are doing here, that's p...

Ask 10 experts about how to give feedback and you will get 10 different answers, simply because everyone is different. Giving feedback always seems to be a very tricky thing to get right. How often you do it, how you do it, where you do it and who you give the feedback to are all parts of the puzzle. Then factor in yourself, are you a conflict avoi...

Organisations struggle a bit in understanding what the context of the organisation is and why it matters. Think about it like this, how can you build a system to manage your organisational health and safety systems if you don't understand what the various pieces of the puzzle are? The aim of the context of the organisation which is clause 4 within ...

It seems every time you go the library, the bookshop or browse your favourite audiobook store there is another book in leadership (plus of course an untold number of blogs!). Each of these books and blogs promise a whole new spin on what you need to do to be a good or a great leader. Which approach should you take, which new theory or guru is the r...

The other week I was trying to arrange a catch up with our local Institute of Directors branch to talk about opportunities to do presentations at their meetings about ISO management systems and the benefit of ISO systems within organisations. With the aim of helping directors understand their part of the ISO environment. The response wasn't what I ...

February 2024 saw the release of the first amendment for ISO9001:2015 for Quality Management Systems. ISO releases amendments to standards when they want to add things to the standard that have already been agreed on, but they don't want to completely review the entire standard.  It's called the Climate Change Actions Amendment. What's been am...

When we talk with clients about achieving ISO14001 for Environmental Management Systems (EMS) the thing that seems to concern them most is getting to grips with two crucial elements: Aspects and Impacts. What are they, how do they interact with each other, and what are you supposed to do with that information. The good news is that these things are...

I overheard a conversation the other week at a between a couple of people who talking about lean. Naturally, my ears pricked up and I just hard to eavesdrop a little bit. They were making a list of their 'lean projects' they had completed already, which was quite a list. They were then going to set their sights on their next 'lean project' and how ...

When we first started helping organisations implement ISO45001:2018 for Occupational Health & Safety Management Systems we quickly realised that organisations were struggling to understand exactly what this standard was about. They were all focused on the day-to-day health & safety processes, accident/incident reporting, risk or in some cas...

The other day I saw a LinkedIn post on leadership, it was another of those “I'll just stick this image up and see what happens” posts, hoping that it would get a reaction and go 'viral', you have all seen them. It had an image saying, "if you want to make everyone happy, don't be a leader. Sell ice Cream". The quote has been attributed to many peop...

When you go see a movie or start bing watching your new favorite show you don't jump in a third of the way through because you know that the early stuff is just pointless, it doesn't add anything or skip the first 3 or 4 chapters of your book because, well the interesting stuff is always in the middle. That 1st part of any story is always the criti...

Here in sunny New Zealand, we are known for lots of things, beautiful landscapes, friendly people, the lord of the ring movies and of course the innovative spirit, that kiwi Number 8 wire approach, she'll be right. That innovative Number 8 wire approach I guess comes about because NZ is just so far away from most things, as a Scot, I also wonder ho...

People don't leave jobs they leave managers, it's a phrase you see across the internet and popping up on memes on social media and of course talks on youtube and TED. There are countless surveys out there that will tell you 57% of people or 78% of people or any number you, want leave a job because of their boss, and so it must be true, that's why p...

The amount of interest in ISO14001 and environmental certifications continues to grow all the time. In a wholly unscientific bit of analysis, we noticed that enquiries to us about helping companies either achieve certification for the 1st time or simplify how they manage their ISO14001 processes with Mango QHSE rose over 150% from 2022, that's pret...

An ISO standard for making Tea? Surely the world has just gone mad, bureaucracy is taking over, and it's just getting a little silly now, who needs a standard for making tea? Anyone can make tea; you bang on the kettle stick a tea bag in a cup and then pour in the hot water and then the milk… Well, hold on a minute, my gran would be incredulous wit...

When I hear about companies and their zero targets it makes me shudder, I feel sorry for the people involved in the organisation knowing that they can never succeed. It doesn't matter if you call it a target or a goal, zero means zero. According to the merriam-webster dictionary, Zero is "the absence of all magnitude and quantity", in other words i...

Productivity is a fickle thing, it can drive you to make some interesting and costly decisions in the name of getting more out of your process. Organisations the world over get sucked into the belief that to improve productivity, you have to open the wallet and spend the profits (or the overdraft) to become more productive. How much are you being b...

If you missed our webinar on how ro Muliply the power of yoru quality system with the amazing Tamela Serensits from Argolytics then you are in luck, we recorded it! The whole point of the webinar was to talk about how to drive business improvement and reduce costs by multiplying the power of your Quality systems. We wanted you to see how easy TREND...

Many organisations that decide to achieve ISO14001 for Environmental Management systems already have ISO9001:2015, which is great because the two systems are very closely aligned and follow the same Higher Level Structure, which creates a harmonised approach to your management systems. What this means then is that Clause 4 of ISO 14001 is going to ...

Throughout the whole AS9100D standard, risk-based thinking is an important thread. In clause 6.1 you are required to look at the risks (and opportunities) linked to the quality management system of the organisation, now AS9100D wants you to focus on even further. The whole point of the 5 points in clause 8.1.1 of AS9100 is to get you to understand ...

Every standard has a requirement that you understand and meet your legal, statutory, regulatory, or contractual obligations. Organisations should have a register to manage these things where you can list out what the requirement is and how you meet that requirement. It shouldn't need a standard to tell you need to meet your obligations, but for som...

Select the link below to get this book. The Absolute Beginners Guide to ISO27001 Understanding what is required by ISO27001 for information security can be tricky, that's why we created free The Absolute Beginners Guide To ISO27001 https://www.manycaps.com/resources/the-absolute-beginners-guide-to-iso27001 Get In Touch If you need any support in de...

We've hit the final quarter of the calendar year, and now is probably a good time to talk about the very best place you can spend a bit of your time. Yes, you need to keep delivering for your clients and finding more and taking care of day-to-day business, but you also need to take a step back and get rid of some zombies! Every organisation has the...

According to Wikipedia, business continuity is defined as "the capability of an organization to continue the delivery of products or services at pre-defined acceptable levels following a disruptive incident" and the business continuity planning is the planning work that goes into the systems and processes you need to put in place to account for tho...

One of the challenges with quality management is building systems and processes that are simple enough for people to use, and want to use, but be robust enough to give you what you need to achieve. As I've talked about before, we spend a lot of time with clients helping them simplify their systems, people will use a simple system every day of the w...

If you think about the first 7 clauses of the AS9100 REV D as building the framework of your Quality Management System, then section 8 - Operation is very much about putting some substance on that framework and as a result it's quite in depth in its requirements. Section 8.1 - Operational Planning and Control, that we will discuss here, gives the r...

Beware the HiPPO! It sounds like something out of the latest blockbuster superhero or horror film doesn't it, a dire warning to the hero about the danger the HiPPO poses with the expectation that the hero, at some point, will have to face the HiPPO and survive. Encountering a HiPPO can range from being terrifying too hilarious to, well, depressing....