By Yelna Yuristiary
Climate change is often discussed as an environmental issue. However, it is increasingly becoming a business, operational and quality issue as well.
Extreme weather, changing temperatures, heavy rainfall, flooding, water shortages and other climate-related conditions can affect an organization's ability to deliver products and services consistently. They can also affect suppliers, workers, materials, infrastructure and customers.
This raises an important question for Quality Management Systems:
Can climate change affect the organization's ability to achieve its intended quality results?
For ISO 9001 users, the answer is not something that should simply be assumed. Organizations are expected to determine whether climate change is a relevant issue for their Quality Management System and consider relevant requirements from interested parties. This climate-change consideration was introduced into ISO 9001 through the 2024 amendment and is carried forward in ISO 9001:2026.
Climate Change Is Not Automatically an Environmental Topic
When people hear “climate change,” they often immediately think about carbon emissions, renewable energy or environmental management.
Those issues can be important, but a Quality Management System looks at the issue from a different perspective.
The question is whether climate-related conditions can affect the organization's processes and its ability to consistently deliver conforming products or services.
For example, a construction company may experience extreme rainfall that affects earthworks, concrete placement, waterproofing activities or material storage. A manufacturer may experience temperature changes that affect production conditions or raw materials. A logistics company may face disruptions to transportation routes.
In these situations, climate conditions can become directly connected to quality performance.
What Does ISO 9001 Say?
The 2024 amendment to ISO 9001 added a specific requirement to Clause 4.1 asking organizations to determine whether climate change is a relevant issue.
Clause 4.2 also recognizes that relevant interested parties may have requirements related to climate change. ISO and the International Accreditation Forum have explained that the purpose is to ensure organizations consider climate change when determining their context and relevant interested-party requirements.
This does not mean that every organization must automatically create a climate-change program under its QMS.
Instead, the organization needs to consider the issue and determine whether it is relevant to the QMS and its intended results.
That distinction is important.
From Climate Risk to Quality Risk
Imagine a construction project working in an area where heavy rainfall is becoming more frequent.
The immediate concern may appear to be environmental or scheduling risk. But the consequences can also affect quality.
Rain can affect concrete placement, earthwork compaction, waterproofing, coatings, excavation stability and material storage. If activities continue under unsuitable conditions, the project may experience defects, rework or additional inspection requirements.
The quality team therefore needs to understand the connection:
Climate condition → process disruption → quality risk → potential defect → cost and schedule impact.
This is where climate considerations can become part of quality management.
Construction Projects Are a Good Example
Construction is particularly sensitive to environmental conditions because many activities take place outdoors.
Concrete quality can be affected by temperature, rainfall, transportation conditions and curing conditions.
Waterproofing work can be affected by moisture and surface conditions.
Painting and coating activities can be affected by temperature and humidity.
Earthworks can be affected by rainfall and soil moisture.
Marine construction can face additional challenges from waves, wind, tides and changing environmental conditions.
The quality manager does not necessarily need to become a climate scientist. The important responsibility is to understand whether changing conditions can affect the project's processes and quality objectives.
Quality Planning May Need to Change
Climate-related considerations can influence quality planning.
For example, a project may establish specific controls for concrete placement during very hot weather. The project may also establish procedures for protecting fresh concrete during rainfall or adjusting work schedules when environmental conditions exceed specified limits.
The same principle can be applied to waterproofing, coating, asphalt works and other activities that depend on environmental conditions.
This is an example of moving from simply reacting to defects toward planning for the conditions that can create them.
Climate Change and Supply Chains
Climate-related disruption does not only happen at the project site.
Modern organizations often depend on complex supply chains.
A supplier may experience production disruption, transportation problems or shortages of certain materials because of extreme weather. These problems can eventually affect delivery time, material availability and product conformity.
This means that climate considerations can also become relevant when evaluating external providers.
For a construction project, for example, quality management may need to consider the reliability of suppliers for concrete materials, steel, waterproofing products, coatings and other critical materials.
The objective is not to predict every possible climate event.
The objective is to understand which external conditions could affect the organization's ability to deliver quality.
Climate Change and Quality KPIs
Climate considerations can also influence Quality KPIs.
A project may normally monitor concrete cube test pass rate, waterproofing defect rate, finishing defect density, NCR trends and corrective-action closure.
But management may also need to understand whether certain quality problems are associated with environmental conditions.
For example, if waterproofing defects increase during periods of heavy rainfall, the organization can investigate whether surface preparation, moisture control or work scheduling needs to be improved.
This creates an interesting relationship between environmental data and quality data.
Instead of looking at quality data independently, organizations can begin to ask:
“What external conditions are influencing our quality performance?”
This is an important step toward predictive quality management.
Digital QMS Can Help
Digital Quality Management Systems can make this process easier.
If quality data, weather information, inspection results, material data and project records are available digitally, organizations can analyse relationships between them.
For example, a project could compare concrete quality results with temperature and delivery-time data.
Over time, patterns may become visible.
This does not mean that every organization needs artificial intelligence. Even a well-designed dashboard can help quality professionals identify relationships that would be difficult to see in paper-based records.
AI and predictive analytics may eventually provide more advanced capabilities, but the foundation remains the same:
Reliable data + relevant indicators + good analysis + informed human decisions.
Climate Change and ISO 9001:2026
The latest ISO 9001 edition, published on 16 September 2026, continues the climate-change consideration introduced in the previous amendment. At the same time, ISO 9001:2026 places greater emphasis on leadership, organizational culture, strategic alignment and the distinction between risks and opportunities.
This creates an important connection.
Climate change should not necessarily be treated as a separate activity sitting outside the QMS.
Where it is relevant, it can be considered within the organization's existing approach to context, interested parties, risks, opportunities, objectives, operational planning and performance evaluation.
In other words, organizations do not necessarily need a completely separate “climate quality system.”
They need to understand where climate-related issues interact with their existing management system.
Quality and Sustainability Are Becoming Connected
Another important trend is the growing connection between quality, environmental management and sustainability.
ISO 9001 focuses on quality management, while standards such as ISO 14001 address environmental management. These systems have compatible structures, making integration possible. ISO has also continued developing climate-related guidance, including ISO 14002-3:2026 on addressing climate-related environmental aspects and conditions within an environmental management system.
For organizations using integrated management systems, this can provide an opportunity to look at quality, environmental and operational risks together.
For example, a construction company may consider how climate conditions affect environmental performance, worker safety, construction quality and project delivery at the same time.
The systems remain distinct, but the risks and processes can be interconnected.
The Role of the Quality Professional Is Changing
This trend also changes the role of quality professionals.
The traditional quality professional might focus mainly on specifications, inspections, testing, NCRs, audits and corrective actions.
The modern quality professional increasingly needs to understand the wider context in which quality is produced.
That includes supply-chain disruption, digitalization, climate-related conditions, organizational culture and changing customer expectations.
The quality professional does not need to own every one of these subjects.
But they need to understand how these factors can influence the organization's ability to consistently achieve quality results.
The Future: Quality That Can Adapt
The traditional idea of quality is often associated with consistency.
Consistency remains important.
But in a rapidly changing environment, organizations also need the ability to adapt while maintaining quality.
This may mean adjusting construction methods, changing inspection frequencies, strengthening supplier controls, improving environmental monitoring or using new data sources to identify emerging risks.
The objective is not simply to maintain the same process regardless of circumstances.
The objective is to maintain the intended quality outcome even when circumstances change.
That is a much more dynamic view of Quality Management.
Quality Management Is Becoming More Resilient
Climate change is therefore not simply a new environmental topic for the Quality Department.
Where relevant, it can become part of a broader discussion about organizational resilience.
Can the organization continue to deliver conforming products and services when conditions change?
Can its suppliers continue to perform?
Can its processes adapt?
Can its quality controls identify new risks early?
And can management use reliable information to make timely decisions?
These are quality questions as much as they are business questions.
The future of Quality Management may therefore be less about creating a perfect system for a stable environment and more about creating a quality system that can remain effective when the environment changes.
That is the deeper meaning of climate change for QMS.
The question is no longer only:
“Are we producing quality today?”
It is also:
“Can our organization continue to produce quality when tomorrow's conditions are different from today's?”
That is where climate change, quality management and organizational resilience begin to meet.
