Panacea, common sense, or just a label?: The value of ISO 14001 environmental management systems

An increasing number of corporations around the world are certifying their environmental management systems by ISO 14000 series standards. Advocates of ISO 14001 claim substantial operational, managerial, and competitive benefits for corporations that adopt the international guidelines. Critics contend that ISO 14001 does not ensure either legal compliance or continued performance improvements. They claim that at plants or facilities already complying with environmental regulations, ISO 14001 certification may merely be an image-building or public relations effort. Theoretically, ISO 14001 could serve as a comprehensive framework for significantly improving performance in a firm with minimal environmental management capacity (in a sense, a `panacea') or as a set of common sense guidelines for enhancing performance in a firm with regulatory compliant practices. Some firms may, indeed, simply use ISO 14001 as a `label' for image-building. The following Case Study of an operationally efficient and regulatory-compliant aluminum plant that certified its environmental management system under ISO 14001 guidelines in 1996 identifies the impacts three years later. Drawing on the literature of program evaluation, and using archival material, interviews with managers, and a concept mapping exercise, four sets of impacts were found of certifying the plant's environmental management system by ISO 14001 standards. They included improvements in (1) employee awareness, (2) operational efficiency, (3) managerial awareness, and (4) operational effectiveness. Many of the world's largest multinational corporations have certified their environmental management systems (EMS) under ISO 14000 standards during the past few years, and many other companies are in the process of doing so. ISO 14000, the International Organization for Standardization's guidelines for environmental management systems, has become the international benchmark by which corporations can voluntarily develop and assess their environmental practices. The ISO 14000 standards, approved in 1996, describe the components and characteristics of an effective system for managing a corporation's environmental impacts ( Tibor and Feldman, 1996). They offer a format for developing an environmental policy, identifying environmental aspects, defining objectives and targets, implementing a program to attain a company's goals, monitoring and measuring effectiveness, correcting deficiencies and problems, and reviewing managem