On 23 February 2024, ISO published a coordinated amendment across 31 management-system standards in the Annex SL (Harmonized Structure) family, including ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, ISO 50001, ISO 22000, and ISO/IEC 27001. The amendment adds explicit climate-change language to the organizational context clauses of every affected standard.
Understanding the amendment matters both for practitioners and for anyone preparing for an ISTO Test of Understanding. The new wording in clauses 4.1 and 4.2 is examinable, and auditors now apply it as part of standard certification practice.
31
management-system standards updated simultaneously
ISO/IAF Joint Communiqué, 23 Feb 2024
4.1 & 4.2
clauses amended in each affected standard
Context of the organization, present in all Annex SL standards
What changed in clauses 4.1 and 4.2
The amendment is targeted and precise. Only two clauses are affected in each standard, and the wording additions are brief but meaningful.
Clause 4.1 — Understanding the organization and its context
Before the amendment, clause 4.1 required organizations to determine external and internal issues relevant to their purpose and strategic direction. Amendment 1:2024 adds a "shall determine" statement: the organization shall determine whether climate change is a relevant issue. The word "whether" is important. It is a genuine binary question, not an assumption. An organization that assesses its context and concludes climate change is not currently relevant can document that conclusion.
Clause 4.2 — Understanding interested parties
Amendment 1:2024 adds a note to clause 4.2 observing that interested parties can have climate-related requirements and expectations. Notes in ISO standards do not add requirements, but they do signal interpretive intent. Auditors will expect to see climate-related perspectives considered when an organization maps its interested parties.
| Clause | Before Amd 1:2024 | After Amd 1:2024 |
|---|---|---|
| 4.1 — Context | Shall determine external and internal issues relevant to purpose and strategic direction | Same, plus: shall determine whether climate change is a relevant issue |
| 4.2 — Interested parties | Shall determine relevant interested parties and their needs and expectations | Same, plus Note: relevant interested parties can have climate-related requirements |
Which standards were amended
The amendment applies across the full Annex SL / Harmonized Structure family, the common architecture that underpins modern management-system standards. All 31 standards received identical wording changes to their respective clauses 4.1 and 4.2, so the amendment is consistent regardless of which standard a practitioner works with.
Standards in the family include, but are not limited to: ISO 9001 (quality), ISO 14001 (environmental), ISO 45001 (occupational health and safety), ISO 50001 (energy), ISO 22000 (food safety), ISO/IEC 27001 (information security), and ISO 22301 (business continuity). The breadth of the amendment signals ISO's intent to embed climate-change consideration as a baseline expectation across the entire management-systems ecosystem, not just in environment-specific standards.
Is re-certification required?
No. This is explicitly confirmed in the ISO/IAF Joint Communiqué published alongside the amendment. Organizations certified under any of the 31 affected standards do not need an additional audit or a special re-certification visit. The amendment is assessed as part of the organization's next scheduled surveillance or recertification audit within their existing certification cycle.
Certification bodies are expected to incorporate the amendment into their audit scope from the date of publication (23 February 2024) onward. In practice this means auditors will ask about clause 4.1 and 4.2 in a way that explicitly surfaces climate-change consideration, but the bar is evidence of genuine deliberation, not a specific predetermined conclusion.
How auditors assess it
Because the amendment adds a "shall determine whether" rather than a "shall do X" requirement, audit evidence is qualitative. Auditors typically look for:
- A documented or demonstrable process by which climate change was considered as part of the organizational context review.
- Some rationale for the conclusion reached, whether the organization considers climate change relevant or not, and why.
- Evidence that interested parties' potential climate-related requirements were on the radar during the 4.2 analysis, even if ultimately assessed as low-priority for this organization.
The real audit risk is a tick-box gesture: recording that climate was "considered" with no analysis behind it. An auditor who grasps what the amendment is driving at will look past the wording to the thinking underneath.
A single coordinated amendment, dated 23 February 2024, brought climate change into 31 Annex SL standards at once, ISO 9001 among them, by writing it into each standard's organizational context review.
— ISO/IAF Joint Communiqué, February 2024
Effective date and practical next steps
The amendment took effect on 23 February 2024 and applies immediately to all certification audits from that date forward. If your organization has already passed a surveillance audit since February 2024, your auditor should have raised clause 4.1 climate consideration. If not, it is worth proactively documenting your analysis ahead of the next visit.
For candidates preparing for an ISTO Test of Understanding, the amendment is part of the current examinable standard (ISO 9001:2015/Amd 1:2024). Expect to be tested on the distinction between what the amendment does (explicit climate consideration in 4.1) and what it does not do (require climate action, trigger re-certification, or prescribe any specific outcome). The related standard pages for ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 cover how the same amendment applies in environmental and occupational health and safety contexts respectively.