Since ISO 14001 has seven main sections, our conformance audit tool (AB) has
seven questionnaires. Similarly, our audit assessment tool (BB) has four sets of
questions because the ISO 19011 auditing standard has four main sections.

For each question, three answers are possible: YES, NO, or N/A. A YES answer
means you’re in compliance with the standard, a NO answer means you’re not in
compliance, while an N/A answer means that a question is not applicable in your
situation. NO answers identify gaps that exist between each standard and your
organization's practices and processes while N/A answers point to items
that aren’t applicable in your case.

All ISO 14001 2015 gaps must be filled and all N/A answers must be justified and
explained before you can say that your organization’s environmental management
system complies with the new ISO 14001 standard. Once you’ve completed all seven
questionnaires, study your NO answers, your own comments, and our questions and
then use this information to formulate actions or steps that need to be taken in order
to bring your organization's practices and processes into compliance with the
standard. Use this information to develop your own unique ISO 14001 2015
Environmental Management Conformance Plan.

You can also summarize your audit results quantitatively if you wish. The idea
here is to measure how compliant your environmental management practices
and processes actually are. If you carry out regular audits, you can also use
our approach to measure whether or not your environmental management
practices and processes are improving over time.

Our ISO 19011 audit assessment tool works much the same way. A YES answer
means you’re in compliance with the standard, a NO answer means you’re not in
compliance, while an N/A answer means that a question is not applicable in your
circumstances. NO answers reveal gaps that exist between the ISO 19011 2011
standard and your organization's internal audit practices and processes.

Once you’ve completed our ISO 19011 audit assessment questionnaires, study
your NO answers and use the associated questions to formulate remedial actions.
Once you've done this for all gaps, you will have four detailed plans which, taken
together, will make up a complete Internal Audit Improvement Plan. And once all
plans have been implemented and all remedial actions have been taken, you
will have improved the overall effectiveness of your organization's internal
audit practices and processes.