What Exactly Is An Environmental Management System?

By Author: Zenil Shroff
Total Articles: 43
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The International Organization for Standardization is an international body that establishes sets of protocols that businesses and organisations can use to implement plans, products and services. The organisation has published many different standards; these are often, but not always, non-specific. Sometimes this is to accommodate multiple types of companies, other times it is to cover a broad range of government regulations. The 14001 standard covers environmental management. Therefore two similar companies, based in different geographical areas and who have ISO 14001 accreditation will have environmental management plans that are broadly the same. The environmental standards they have to conform to might differ. ISO 14001 is an internationally-recognised certificate for evaluating how well an organisation manages its environmental responsibilities.

The ISO has this to say: "The intention of ISO 14001:2004 is to provide a framework for a holistic, strategic approach to the organization's environmental policy, plans and actions."

Basically, what this is saying is that as long as a company adheres to the ...
... framework as it relates to the regulations of the country in which the company is based, it can achieve an ISO 14001 accreditation. The reason that it seems so vague is that it is designed to work for any company, regardless of what product or service they offer.

The guidelines are as follows:

The company shall identify and control the environmental impact of its activities, services or products and to improve its environmental performance continually to achieving these targets and demonstrating that they have, in fact, been achieved.

Looking at this it should be clear that the company will get more and more environmentally friendly as long as it adheres to the guidelines. Having an ISO 14001 accreditation will help the company reach and eventually exceed the mandatory environmental regulations as well as presenting a greener image to its client base by being able to promote itself as an environmentally aware company.

Because the regulations governing environmental impact and pollution are different world wide, the client probably can't tell whether the company in country X is greener than the company in country Y, but will be likely to view a company in with an ISO 14001 certification more favourably than one without. Anything that reduces the environmental impact a company can only be a good thing for the planet.

If more people voted with their wallets and only bought products and services from greener ISO certified companies, then more companies will look for an ISO 14001 certification to help increase their client base and profit margin. In these difficult financial times people try to get the best deal, meaning that the countries with the poorest environmental record but the keenest prices have increased sales.