Maintain and Improve
Standards Updates and Transition Support
Stay ahead of standard revisions rather than reacting to them
Reviewed 3 October 2026by Julian Russell, Managing Director
In short
Standards change. Equas monitors revisions to the ISO standards you hold, explains what has actually changed in plain English, assesses your system against the new requirements, updates your documentation and supports you through the transition audit before the deadline, including the current moves to ISO 9001:2026 and ISO 14001:2026.
What the service involves
A revised standard is not an academic event. It comes with a transition deadline, and organisations that miss it lose their certification.
There are two live examples right now. ISO 14001:2026 was published on 15 April 2026, and certificates to the 2015 edition must transition by 30 April 2029. ISO 9001:2026 followed on 16 September 2026, with a deadline of 30 September 2029. Both timetables have been confirmed by Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated (Global ACI), which took over the role of the International Accreditation Forum in January 2026. Three years sounds like plenty of time. In practice, certification bodies schedule transition audits into existing surveillance visits, which means the real decision point for most organisations arrives considerably earlier than the formal deadline.
ISO 45001 is next: a draft of the revised standard was published in April 2026, and the new edition is expected in 2027. If you hold more than one of these standards, planning the transitions together avoids repeating the same groundwork.
Transitions also tend to bunch. Everyone leaves it, then everyone needs an audit slot in the same six months.
This service takes the standard revision off your list.
We monitor the standards you hold and tell you when something is coming, before it is urgent. When a revision lands, we explain what genuinely changed, which is usually a shorter list than the marketing around a new standard suggests, though rarely an empty one. We then run a gap analysis of your existing system against the new requirements, update the documentation, deliver awareness training on what is different, and plan the transition audit with your certification body so it fits into a surveillance visit you were having anyway.
That last point matters commercially. A transition folded into a scheduled surveillance audit costs considerably less than a separate visit.
The same process applies to any standard you hold. For ISO 27001, that includes watching ISO/IEC 27002, the guidance its Annex A controls are drawn from. When ISO/IEC 27002 was revised in February 2022, the Annex A controls were updated to match in ISO/IEC 27001:2022 eight months later, and every certified organisation had to transition.
Who it is for
Working towards certification
If you are ready to start but unsure whether to wait for a new edition, there is no need to. We build new systems to meet both the outgoing and the new edition, so you are ready for certification whenever you want or need it, whichever edition your certification body audits against at the time. From 31 October 2027 (ISO 14001) and 31 March 2028 (ISO 9001), new certificates can only be issued to the 2026 editions.
Already certified
Transition is mandatory and deadline-driven: 30 April 2029 for ISO 14001 and 30 September 2029 for ISO 9001. Folding it into a scheduled surveillance audit is significantly cheaper than a separate visit.
What is included
We tell you a revision is coming while there is still time to plan, not when the deadline is close.
What actually changed and what it means for you, rather than a clause-by-clause comparison nobody reads.
A structured assessment of exactly what in your system needs to change.
Policies, procedures and records revised to meet the new version.
So the people using the system understand what has changed and why.
Coordinated with your certification body, ideally folded into a visit already scheduled.
Including ISO 27001, where we also track ISO/IEC 27002, the guidance its Annex A controls are drawn from.
How it works
- 1
Monitoring
We track the standards you hold through the revision process and alert you when something is coming.
- 2
Change briefing
A plain English explanation of what has changed and what it means for your organisation specifically.
- 3
Gap analysis
Your current system is assessed against the new requirements to establish the real scope of work.
- 4
Documentation update
Documents are revised, reviewed and reissued under version control.
- 5
Awareness training
The people affected are briefed on what is different.
- 6
Transition audit
Planned with your certification body, ideally within an existing surveillance visit, with us in attendance.
The most popular standards we support
Equas helps clients achieve UKAS-accredited certification across every ISO standard we cover.
The international standard for quality management systems
The international standard for environmental management systems
The international standard for IT service management
The international standard for business continuity management
The international standard for information security management
The international standard for AI management systems
The international standard for occupational health and safety
The international standard for energy management systems
Quality management for the built environment, built on ISO 9001
The Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme
Frequently asked questions
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