Benefits of the ISO14000 family ofInternational Standards

In today’s global economy, organizationsare increasingly called upon to demon-strate sound management of economic,social and environmental issues. Evi-dence suggests that a focus on this“ triple bottom line ” results in advantagesin financing, insurance, marketing, regu-latory treatment, and other areas.

An Environmental Management System(EMS) is a structured approach to ad-dressing the environmental bottom line.ISO 14001 is the world’s most recognizedEMS framework – accepted fromArgentina to Zimbabwe – that helpsorganizations both to manage better theimpact of their activities on the environ-ment and to demonstrate sound environ-mental management.

Since the publication of ISO 14001, manycompanies have implemented the stan-dard and, by the end of 2001, nearly 37 000 organizations in 112 countries hadtheir EMS certified as conforming to itsrequirements. ISO 14001 is designed tobe flexible enough to be applied to anysized organization in both the private andpublic sectors. The bottom line is that certification to ISO 14001 can improveenvironmental management and enablesequal access to a growing “green” mar-ket place.

ISO 14001 is also the starting point forcompanies that want to use other envi-ronmental management tools developedby ISO/TC 207. For example, ISO 14004provides additional guidance and usefulexplanations and complements ISO14001.

Of course, an EMS will only be of maximumbenefit if it is properly implemented.Environmental audits are important toolsfor assessing whether an EMS is properlyimplemented and maintained. The newauditing standard, ISO 19011, is equallyuseful for EMS and quality managementsystem audits. It provides guidance onprinciples of auditing, managing audit programmes, the conduct of audits and on the competence of auditors. ISO 19011replaces the ISO 14010, ISO 14011 andISO 14012 first generation of environmentalauditing standards in the ISO 14000 family.

Organizations implementing ISO 14001 canexpect to improve their environmental per-formance. ISO 14031 provides guidance onhow an organization can evaluate its envi-ronmental performance. The standard alsoaddresses the selection of suitable per-formance indicators, so that performancecan be assessed against criteria set by management. This sort of information can be used as a basis for internal and externalreporting on environmental performance.

Communication on the environmentalaspects of products and services is animportant way to use market forces to influ-ence environmental improvement. Truthfuland accurate information provides thebasis on which consumers can makeinformed purchasing decisions. The ISO14020 series of standards address a range

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of different approaches to environmentallabels and declarations, including self-declared environmental claims, eco-labels(seals of approval) and quantified environ-mental information about products andservices.

ISO 14001 addresses not only the envi-ronmental aspects of an organization’sprocesses, but also those of its productsand services. Therefore ISO/TC 207developed additional tools to assist inaddressing such aspects. Life CycleAssessment (LCA) is a tool for identifyingand evaluating the environmental aspectsof products and services from the “cradleto the grave ” : from the extraction ofresource inputs to the eventual disposalof the product or its waste. The ISO 14040standards give guidelines on the princi-ples and conduct of LCA studies that pro-vide an organization with information onhow to reduce the overall environmentalimpact of its products and services.

ISO/TR 14064is another tool ; it allows environ-mental aspects to betaken in account in thedesign and development of products.

Although the ISO 14000 standards aredesigned to be mutually supportive, theycan also be used independently of eachother to achieve environmental goals.

The whole ISO 14000 family provides man-agement tools for organizations to controltheir environmental aspects and to improvetheir environmental performance.Together,these tools can provide significant tangibleeconomic benefits, including :

! reduced raw material/resource use ;

! reduced energy consumption ;

! improved process efficiency ;

! reduced waste generation and disposal costs, and

! utilization of recoverable resources.

Of course, associated with each of theseeconomic benefits are distinct environ-mental benefits too. This is the contribu-tion that the ISO 14000 series makes to

the environmental and economic components of sustainable

development and thetriple bottom line.

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