What methodology is ISO 14001 based on?

• A. PDCA cycle for quality management
• B. DMAIC cycle
• C. Plan-Do-Check-Act
• D. Kaizen cycle

Answer: (C)

ISO 14001 is built around the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, a repeatable loop that drives continual improvement of environmental performance. Plan involves setting objectives, identifying legal and other requirements, and designing the processes needed to meet them. Do is putting those processes into action and operating the environmental management system. Check means monitoring, measuring, and evaluating environmental performance and compliance to see whether the plan is working. Act is taking corrective actions and making improvements based on what has been learned, feeding those lessons back into new planning. This cyclical approach keeps the system evolving and improving over time, which is at the heart of ISO 14001.

The other ideas refer to related improvement concepts, but they don’t align as the formal framework used by ISO 14001. DMAIC is a Six Sigma problem-solving cycle focused on reducing variation, Kaizen emphasizes ongoing incremental improvements, and describing it as a PDCA cycle for quality management uses the same loop in a different domain, whereas ISO 14001 applies Plan-Do-Check-Act specifically to environmental management and performance.