ISO 14001: Environment Management Standards - Article Example

ISO 14001: Environment Management Standards 28 April ISO 14001: Environment Management Standards ISO 14001 is a standard formulated by the International Organization for Standardization, an international, nongovernmental body liable of formulating international management standards. ISO 14001 is a standard defining Environmental Management Standards (EMS) that was launched in 1995 and finally implemented in 1996. The need to formulate such a standard was to counter the fast degrading environmental situation that was being encountered globally due to the irresponsible industrial processes that mainly aimed at profits and overlooked numerous other responsibilities. The standard’s goal was to have many organizations as possible commit themselves to the standard. By this, most organizations would be more conscious of their environmental and corporate social responsibilities, thus go ahead to minimize the environmental degradation globally (Ruihua and Bansal, 2003). Initially, response to the call of adopting ISO 14001 soon after its implementation encountered numerous rejections. Many organizations had the perspective that the standards would curtail most of their production levels. This was an undeniable hint that most of these organizations openly violated their corporate social and environmental obligations. It was also realized that most rebels of ISO 14001 had the same attitude to ISO 9000, a standard that defined Quality Management Standards. ISO 9000, published in 1987 governed the responsibility that organizations had in satisfying consumers, and other organization stakeholders, defining some obligations organizations had towards the society and the environment (Zeng, Tian and Shi, 2005). This standard has been largely likened to ISO 14001, only that ISO 14001 came out more clearly and specific about satisfying environmental obligations. Low adoption and diffusion of ISO 14001 experienced in the later years of the 20th century, however, picked up in the early 21st century due to influence and pressure that organizations had from the civil society and the economic and political unions that most countries belonged to such as European Union (EU) and the larger global umbrella, the United Nations (UN). This had a significant impact, and to date, ISO 14001 boasts allegiance by close to 190,000 organizations globally from 155 countries. Evident growth in the early 21st century could be exhibited by a 70% growth that transpired between 2004 and 2008 where more than 77,000 ISO 14001 certifications were registered. This clearly indicated the growing rate at which organizations were ready to comply with their corporate social and environmental responsibilities (Peglau and Baxter, 2007). Unlike many initial thoughts that contributed to fears of adoption of ISO 14001, the standard is more concerned with processes and not the actual outcomes that defined pollution. This is because it is only through efficient processes that the standard’s objectives could be obtained, plus no outcomes can ever be changed by mere study of the actual outcomes but by only focusing on the processes that result to the various outcomes. To this regard, ISO 14001 has set phases that define its implementation scenario. The first step taken by an organization to comply with ISO 14001 is to establish the organization’s environmental policy. In this initial phase, an organization is to define, document, implement, maintain and communicate to all hierarchical levels its environmental policy. This would ensure that everyone in the organization is aware of the policy thus commit each of them to that particular environmental obligation (Reinhardt, 2003). The next phase in the standard implementation is requirement planning. In this phase, an organization is supposed to establish, implement, document and maintain various procedures to help recognize various aspects of the environment that its activities, services and products affect. The organization is supposed to look on the legal authority to ensure compliance to the legal system. This is done by setting up various processes that clarify the organization’s environmental aspects with relation to the legal framework. This phase ensures that as well as thriving to maintain social and environmental responsibility, no legal framework is defaulted. The final step in this phase is to develop objectives and corresponding programs to ensure that the organization’s environmental objectives are met without any hindrance. The third phase involves drawing out operational requirements that would define the actual implementation. The first step in this phase is to create new responsibilities pertaining environmental obligations of the organization and also provide resources to establish, implement, maintain, and improve the organization’s Environmental Management System, thus the ISO 14001. Various responsibilities, roles and authorities are created to ensure commitment to the organizations objectives. Appropriate training and establishing awareness programs is the next step here that ensures competency in the responsible persons aimed at performing tasks to ensure compliance to ISO 14001. A dedicated communication process is established for internal progress on the proceedings to satisfy environmental procedures. Finally, with regard to this phase, appropriate documentation, control procedures and emergency management processes are set up to provide a blueprint for reference in the course of the implementation program (London, 2001). The fourth phase concerns checking the requirements for the standard implementation. This includes establishing a monitoring and measurement regime, evaluating corresponding legality in the processes, dealing with nonconformities, managing the environmental documentation and records and performing regular audits for environmental management. This phase ensures no loophole is left in the initial objectives that were placed to satisfy the whole process of environmental management system. Lastly, a review of the requirements is a vital phase that ensures regular assessments of the entire process. In this phase, various environmental management reviews are taken to check on the processes’ sufficiency, efficiency and effectiveness. Further opportunities to improve the organization’s environmental management system are assessed to check out for any possible improvements. Finally, the consequent reviews are well recorded and documented to provide reference for future use. Adoption and implementation of ISO 14001 has shown diverse benefits to most organizations. However, the benefits take quite a long time before manifesting given the involving procedure involved that entails implementation. The first advantage that organizations realize is the methodical system that organizations discover the diverse effects their outputs and processes have to the environment. This assists them to have control on these factors that pose potential destruction to the environment (Jackson, 1997). Efficiency and productivity attained through implementing ISO 14001 go a long way in improving an organizations production expenditure thus making significant cost savings. Means of doing this could be through detecting techniques of more effective disposal and efficient use of energy. Finally, implementing ISO 14001 ensures compliance to the legal framework and other existing legislations governing environmental measures. Compliance to the legal framework always ensures ease to access insurance cover thus helping protect an organization’s assets. Global organizations have an obligation to serve their corporate social and environmental responsibilities in the society they exist that also, provides them the market they need for the goods and services. Implementing ISO 14001 and following through all its phases to obtain certification is a perfect way to tie an organization to societal responsibilities. More pressure from economic and political bodies supported by the civil society should be exerted to ensure compliance by more companies, otherwise threats on imposing sabotage to these respective companies’ products should be emphasized. A perfect way of ensuring implementation would be making known to the various organizations the benefits that would accompany compliance that include cost saving, better access to insurance cover and an enhanced control of pollution agents. References Reinhardt, M. (2003). Critical factors for implementing ISO14001 standard in United States industrial companies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 11, 749–752. London, S. (2001). Review: Environmental management plans demystified: a guide to implementing ISO14001. Journal of Public Health, 54, 240. Ruihua, J. and Bansal, P. (2003). European Seeing the Need for ISO 14001. Journal of Management Studies, 17, 2-3. Peglau, R., and Baxter, M. (2007). A decade of ISO 14001: 1996-2006. The Impact of ISO 14001, 1, 1-9. Zeng, S.X., Tian, P., and Shi, J. (2005). Implementing integration of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 for construction. Managerial Auditing Journal, 20(4), 394 – 407. Jackson, S. (1997). The ISO 14001 Implementation Guide: Creating an Integrated Management System, 1st Ed. New York: Wiley. Read More