ISO 14000 environmental management standards their relation to sustainability

Wareham2 Abstract:The aim of this study was to explore the link between sustainable development and the ISO 14000 Environmental Manage-ment Series of Standards, with particular reference

ISO 14000 Environmental Management Standards:

Their Relation to Sustainability

P Elefsiniotis1 and D G Wareham2

Abstract:The aim of this study was to explore the link between sustainable development and the ISO 14000 Environmental Manage-ment Series of Standards, with particular reference to the ISO 14001 standard In order to do this, it was decided to evaluate the ISO 14000 series in the context of a large engineering facility; namely, the Canadian provincial Crown Corporation of Manitoba Hydro The ISO

14000 series is in principle an effective system to manage an organization’s self-prescribed environmental goals; however, its main

limitations are that it does not require the demonstration of environmental performance and it is sometimes difficult to interpret and apply

due to ambiguous language The paper closes with speculations that despite these shortcomings, the essence of the ISO 14000 series of

standards is in sympathy with the notion of sustainability

DOI:10.1061/共ASCE兲1052-3928共2005兲131:3共208兲

CE Database subject headings:Standards; Environmental issues; Sustainable development

Introduction

In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and

Develop-ment popularized the term “sustainable developDevelop-ment” as being

“development that meets the needs of the present without

compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own

needs” 共WECD 1987兲 While sustainable development has

been primarily interpreted as a national 共or global兲 goal, there

is increasing discussion of the “sustainable city,” the “sustainable

sector,” and the “sustainable business and/or corporation”

共Atkin-son 2000兲 At the latter level, many organizations have

investi-gated alternative corporate architectures which facilitate progress

toward ecological sustainability 共Griffiths and Petrick 2001兲

Along with changes in organizational structures, it has become

increasingly clear that in order to remain viable in the business

world, proactive environmental management programs need to be

integrated into corporate business strategies during long-term

planning共Berry and Rondinelli 1998兲

Recognizing that sound environmental management can gain

numerous benefits, companies have adopted environmental

poli-cies and performed environmental audits to determine the

effec-tiveness of their environmental program Given the diverse topics

that come under the umbrella of environmental management共air,

water and soil quality, waste management, legal requirements,

audits, etc.兲, it was inevitable that environmental management

systems共EMS兲 would be developed to address all relevant issues

in an integrated manner The term EMS therefore refers to the totality of all things an organization does to monitor its effects

on the environment and manage its environmental affairs 共Ibbotson 1996; Darnall et al 2000兲 A review of some of the major elements in the development of EMS systems is presented below

Background

The first stage involved environmental guidelines or charters that were documents intended to assist businesses in managing and improving their environmental performance Usually not legally binding, they included broad statements general enough to be adopted by any organization wishing to protect the environment

A large number of these exist 共Loves 1999兲, but two examples include the Coalition of Environmentally Responsible Economies 共CERES兲 and the International Chamber of Commerce 共ICC兲 Business Charter for Sustainable Development

The CERES charter developed in 1989 espouses 10 principles that support a model corporate code of environmental conduct The charter requires the development of a comprehensive environmental policy, as well as an annual self-evaluation of environmental progress, made available to the public through

a CERES report 共i.e., in effect a monitoring process兲 The

10 CERES principles are comprehensive and a company endorsing them pledges to commit the organization to sustainable development as shown in the Introduction “…corporations must not compromise the ability of future generations to sustain themselves”共Brophy 1996兲

The ICC Business Charter for Sustainable Development how-ever is probably the most widely supported charter worldwide Developed in 1991 as a “code of conduct” for industry, it may be used as a framework for developing an environmental policy 共IISD 1998兲 Sixteen principles define the charter that describes environmental responsibilities with respect to aspects of health, safety, and product management Unlike CERES, the ICC does not monitor or control compliance to the charter claiming that commitment is a “good faith” process No annual report is

1

Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ of Auckland,

Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand 共corresponding author兲.

E-mail: t.elefsiniotis@auckland.ac.nz

2 Dept of Civil Engineering, Univ of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800,

Christchurch, New Zealand.

Note Discussion open until December 1, 2005 Separate discussions

must be submitted for individual papers To extend the closing date by

one month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Managing

Editor The manuscript for this paper was submitted for review and

pos-sible publication on May 19, 2003; approved on August 12, 2004 This

paper is part of the Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering

Edu-cation and Practice, Vol 131, No 3, July 1, 2005 ©ASCE, ISSN

1052-3928/2005/3-208–212/$25.00.

released, however, the charter requires that “regular audits and

assessments of compliance” be performed, and that appropriate

information be periodically communicated to the board of

direc-tors, shareholders, employees, the authorities, and the public

Assessments however need not be scheduled, consistent or

comparable, and the released information is left to the

organiza-tion’s discretion 共Phyper and Ibbotson 1996兲 Although the

charter’s title includes sustainable development, the principles do

not explicitly reflect this concept as in the CERES principles

Many existing charters contain principles that can be classed

as commonsense, however, the style in which they are written can

cause repudiation of a charter For example, the CERES charter

makes a direct commitment to action, which to some

organiza-tions appears too demanding and unrealistic to adopt Thus, the

trend for many industries is to opt for other less demanding and

less stringent charters共Brophy 1996兲

Although many charter principles provide the qualitative

framework that underpins the development of an environmental

management system, the need to ensure a certain consistency

in EMS quality led to the second stage, which involved the

development of several national but voluntary environmental

management system standards in the 1990s The first standard to

emerge was the British Standard 7750 (BS 7750) developed by

the British Standards Institution共BSI兲 in 1992 This was followed

by the European Union’s 共EU兲 Eco-Management and Audit

Scheme 共EMAS兲 in 1993 At the same time, within the EU,

other nations chose to develop their own standards Ireland

developed IS 310, France X30-200, and Spain developed

UNE77-801 Outside Europe, South Africa developed SABS-0251, Canada

developed CSA 7750, while others simply chose to adopt BS7750

as their national EMS standard Although all provide similar

elements, variations in their levels of detail, implementation

pro-cedures, and requirements for accreditation led to confusion in

defining the relative significance of the various standards This

raised the necessity for one international standard that could cross

national boundaries In late 1996, the long awaited international

environmental management standard, the ISO 14000 series was

published, with the intention of crossing all trade and political

borders, as well as being applicable to any kind of organization

共GEMI 1996; Starkey 1996兲

ISO, as the International Organization for Standardization is

more commonly known, is not an acronym, but is in fact derived

from the Greek word ISO, meaning “equal ” The ISO’s focus

was initially on technical/scientific standards but in the 1980s,

technical committee 共TC 176兲 developed a quality management

standard in order to standardize one aspect of organizational

man-agement The result was the ISO 9000 series of international,

generic quality management standards adopted in 1987 In 1993,

TC 207 was created to develop a number of environmental

standards in different areas including standardization in the field

of environmental management, tools, and systems The scope of

the ISO 14000 environmental series of standards was similar to

the ISO 9000 standards in that the environmental standards were

process quality standards共Von Zharen 1996; Baker and McKeil

1998兲, and as such would not specify final product quality

objec-tives 共Cascio et al 1996兲 ISO 14000 is therefore a series of

environmental standards aimed at providing organizations with a

structured framework to manage their environmental impacts and

responsibilities; however, the emphasis is on the management

process which aims to be consistent and which in turn should

generate products of consistent quality

Some of the ISO 14000 series 共the Organization Evaluation

group兲 concentrate on the organization’s management,

environ-mental auditing, and environenviron-mental performance evaluation systems, while others 共the Product Evaluation group兲 include such things as environmental labeling, life cycle assessment procedures, and product standards In the latter case, there is an intuitive link to sustainable development because practices such

as Design for the Environment can be included, which involve answering questions about the life cycle of the product and its production process共DeMendonça and Baxter 2001兲

Although the Product Evaluation link to sustainability is strong, limited work has been done on assessing how the first

group of ISO 14000 series promotes the notion of sustainable

development In other words, it has been recognized by some companies that they have now become “clean”—but is that the same thing as “sustainable?” One aspect of this stems from the fact that many companies set targets long before they formalized their EMS The implementation of a standardized EMS may have helped them achieve their goals more effectively, but it may not necessarily have led to a change in the goals themselves; thus, many companies advocate that they would have achieved their environmental goals共i.e., become “green”兲 regardless of the EMS 共Steger 2000兲

The aim of this research was therefore to explore the ways and means the first group of standards共i.e., the Organization Group兲 promotes the notion of sustainable development In order to do

this it was decided to evaluate the ISO 14000 series of standards

in the context of a large engineering facility; namely, the Canadian provincial Crown Corporation of Manitoba Hydro The study focused on the Organization Evaluation standards

within the ISO 14000 series referring specifically to the ISO

14001 EMS specification, and the supporting guidance documents

and environmental auditing standards共ISO 1996a,b,c兲

Discussion

Manitoba Hydro’s Environmental Management Systems

As a member of the Canadian Electricity Association, Manitoba Hydro participates in a required, industry-wide environmental ini-tiative known as the Environmental Commitment and Responsi-bility共ECR兲 program Within the program, each electric utility is given freedom to determine the direction and scope of implemen-tation best suited for their organization; thus, to indicate the ex-tent of their commitment to the environment, Manitoba Hydro adopted 13 “principles of sustainable development” which far

sur-pass the minimal requirements of ISO 14001 共Dennis Windsor, personal communication, May 15, 1998兲

Manitoba Hydro resolved to develop and implement four EMSs within the corporation: one for each of four respective business units; corporate, power supply, transmission and distribution, and customer service and marketing To start with, Manitoba Hydro began to develop EMSs for the corporate and power supply business units The power supply business unit has

6 divisions: Finance and Administration, Power Planning, Generation North 共6 hydraulic generating stations兲, Generation South 共8 generating stations兲, High Voltage Direct Current 共3 converter facilities兲, and Operations and Engineering Services

It was decided that each separate facility/operation was to develop their own Local EMS 共LEMS兲, and that the cumulative LEMS would establish the Business Units’ EMS Each facility/operation would have its own environmental objectives that must include the corporate environmental policy and conform to the overall

business plan As there are many overlaps and linkages between

business units, the same would be true for the EMSs Manitoba

Hydro then elected to develop an EMS for each Business Unit

comprised of cumulative LEMS

Two approaches can be taken with regards to certification

although it is not required by the ECR, since only the

implemen-tation of an ISO-like EMS is required The first approach involves

individual site certification which allows gradual certification of

units as soon as the LEMS are implemented Since this approach

does not depend on the progress of other units, it shows

immedi-ate commitment to the environment; however, individual site

registrations can result in less cohesiveness between the systems

The second approach involves certifying each of the business

units, which although more complicated would ensure an overall

better corporate wide system cohesiveness Manitoba Hydro

selected the first approach and their first six power stations were

certified by the year 2000共Manitoba Hydro 2000兲

General Criticisms of ISO 14000 Series

and Their Application to Manitoba Hydro

As mentioned, the ISO 14000 series offer an organization the

tools and systems to manage their environmental responsibilities

Much confusion however has arisen about the standards within

the series, for example, ISO 14001 It is commonly misconceived

as a “performance” standard for the environment by both the

public and experienced environmental professionals alike Indeed,

many staff at Manitoba Hydro had this impression at the start of

this research共Dennis Windsor, personal communication, June 5,

1998兲 The assumption that the ISO has set standards for

environ-mental protection is reported elsewhere 共Gleckman and Krut

1997兲, but in fact, as intimated earlier, the ISO series are

“pro-cess” rather than performance and/or “compliance” standards

Al-though the series were developed according to the mandate of

their authors, many therefore believe that they do not make

enough of a commitment to the environment and, that in order to

mitigate pollution, environmental goals are required共Cascio et al

1996兲

Another point of confusion arises because compliance with

the ISO specification requires conformance to the series, not the

demonstration of environmental performance As a management

system addressing environmental issues, the premise behind

the specification is that if the system is continually improved,

eventually so should the organization’s environmental

perfor-mance Although implied, compliance and/or certification does

not mean that the organization produces more environmentally

sound products, or that its activities or services are more

environ-mentally sensitive Improvements in the environmental

manage-ment system are intended to result in additional improvemanage-ments in

environmental performance, but, as ISO 14001 states, adopting

the standard will not in itself guarantee optimal environmental

outcomes共ISO 1996a兲 Thus, two organizations that have

differ-ent environmdiffer-ental performance and differdiffer-ent goals may both be in

conformation with the specification, and may therefore be

certi-fied共ISO 1996a兲

A third issue involves the actual certification process When an

organization seeks certification, it defines the scope of the

certifi-cation audit This may include single or multiple sites, facilities,

or processes, and may exclude others The idea is to offer a

cor-poration the flexibility to register units separately, as Manitoba

Hydro has opted共Manitoba Hydro 2000兲 or under one certificate

However, this flexibility also allows for a misleading situation to

arise, whereby a facility receives ISO 14001 certification, but only

for their narrowly defined scope Such an occurrence took place

in Ontario Hydro, where a nuclear generating station was ISO

14001 certified, but the scope of the audit excluded the nuclear

generating process, which can potentially impact the environment significantly 共C Camplong, personal communication, 1998兲 Should a serious situation arise at this facility, it would reflect badly on all utilities, while discrediting the ISO certification pro-cess and potentially the ECR program

Additionally, the organization, within its policy, is required to commit to comply with relevant environmental legislation and other requirements Surprisingly, an organization can be certified

to the ISO 14001 standard while not being in compliance with

all relevant environmental legislation The organization must only

be able to demonstrate conformance to the system 共commitment

to comply兲 rather than compliance to legislation During an environmental certification audit, auditors will verify that these commitments are fulfilled, in addition to the requirements of the standard In the case of Manitoba Hydro, “other requirements” refers to their sustainable development principles, ECR, and all other programs, initiatives, and commitments made

Another criticism that is an impediment to embracing the ISO

14000 series is the language used in the standards Unclear

word-ing that is open to broad and varied interpretation poses difficul-ties for any organization implementing the series This was a common complaint that surfaced among the staff at Manitoba Hydro共Loves 1999兲 The consequence of unclear wording is that the organization cannot be sure that its interpretations will match those of the external certification auditor should the organization choose to become certified Clarity and consistency in the series definitions of various tools and strategies and their order of pref-erence would make it easier for facilities to understand what they should be striving toward to improve their EMSs共Barkett 1998兲

For example, the ISO 14001 standard has a requirement that a

commitment be made to continual improvement of the EMS and

to prevention of pollution, defined as “use of processes, practices, materials or products that avoid, reduce or control pollution, which may include recycling, treatment, process changes, control mechanisms, efficient use of resources and material substitution.” The phrase “prevention of pollution” therefore includes “end of pipe” solutions which is different from pollution prevention as commonly understood in the United States共where it is more in line with the concept of “source reduction”兲 Since a commitment

to prevention of pollution is stated in the policy section of the standard, inclusion of a waste minimization hierarchy may help

to elucidate what a “commitment to prevention of pollution” actually means

ISO 14001 requires that an organization’s “environmental

as-pects” over which it has influence be identified Environmental aspects are any “element of an organization’s activities, products,

or services that can interact with the environment.” The EMS is required to determine which aspects have or can have a signifi-cant environmental impact; with impact defined as “any change to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or par-tially resulting from an organization’s activities, products or ser-vices.” The terms “aspect” and “impact” lack clarity of definition and direction Furthermore, “significant” is not defined in the

standard and is only developed slightly further in ISO 14004,

Similarly, when establishing environmental objectives and targets the organization has to consider legal and other requirements, significant environmental aspects, technological options, finan-cial, operational, and business requirements and the views of in-terested parties Without performance requirements, the word

“consider” seems to be open to interpretation

A final example of unclear wording relates to the term “best

available technology” which is not required by ISO 14001 in

order to avoid prescribing performance The standard does make

reference to best available technology as follows: “in order to

achieve environmental objectives, an EMS should encourage

or-ganizations to consider implementation of the best available

tech-nology, where appropriate and where economically viable.” The

fact that best available technology is mentioned a number of

times but is not required points to the compromises made by TC

207 between those that wanted to include it in the specification

and those that thought it was too performance oriented共Baker and

McKeil 1998兲 It is also apparent that the use of “soft” words such

as “appropriate,” and consider open opportunities for

organiza-tions to minimize the investments they make in the system so

long as they substantiate their decisions

A concluding comment is that an organization is required to

“consider processes for external communication on its significant

environmental aspects and record its decision.” Previous

stan-dards such as EMAS require that an organization publish registers

of their significant environmental effects, as well as publishing an

annual environmental statement External reporting is a proactive

communication vehicle demonstrating an organization’s

commit-ment to its policies, the environcommit-ment, and the public’s concerns

In that sense, ISO appears to be weak in this area since it does not

make it a requirement Manitoba Hydro however is reasonably

transparent in that it publishes a biennial sustainable development

report and is also required by ECR to publish an annual report

including environmental performance as measured by specific

indicators

In summary, the ISO 14000 series is intended to be a flexible

tool that allows an organization to determine its own level of

commitment to environmental performance The widespread

adoption of the series reflects the fact that they are seen by

indus-tries to be a reasonable tool for the effective management of

environmental responsibilities and commitments However, the

absence of any specific how to instructions, the lack of

clarifica-tion of anticipated final products, and the lack of clear direcclarifica-tion

and ambiguous language, all tend to confuse matters rather than

simplify the issues Because ISO 14001 does not specify any

per-formance requirements, it has been criticized as being too weak

It can be applied to all types of organizations and, in order to be

widely applicable, has been accused of applying the lowest

com-mon denominator for environmental protection To illustrate the

ISO 14001 EMS’ intent, Joe Cascio, the Chairman of the U.S.

Technical Advisory Group in 1994, summed up the system by

stating that he did not care “how much waste an ISO-certified

firm dumps into a river What was important is that the company’s

EMS knows it happened”共Gleckman and Krut 1997兲 This clearly

reinforces that fact that the ISO series measures conformance not

performance

Sustainable Development and ISO 14000 Series

To explore the relationship between the ISO 14000 series and

sustainability, it might seem sensible that there should be

agree-ment about what sustainability means However, it is probably

unrealistic to expect a tight definition to emerge Previous

genera-tions could not readily envision the world of today, therefore,

it will always be difficult to “secure the needs of the future”

when they can only be perceived as an extrapolation of present

needs Despite questions about “how far” in the future and to

“what level” one should protect the environment, the lack of

definitive answers should not be considered insuperable barriers

to implementation The reason is because it is not necessary to be able to define a concept in order to implement it

For example, since the time of Socrates and Plato, there have been arguments about the notion of justice—with regards to its meaning and definition The inability to define justice has, how-ever, not stopped the implementation of a system that has as its roots the principle of identifying unjust situations and trying to eliminate them This is called a legal system rather than a justice system because of the tacit recognition of society’s inability to define justice The consequence of moving away from unjust practices is an inevitable shift toward justice In the same manner, regardless of difficulties with the definition of sustainability, it is apparent that unsustainable practices can be clearly identified and eliminated Inevitably therefore society will move towards sus-tainability For instance, on a personal level, every time an indi-vidual makes a choice to install energy-efficient heating systems and/or undertakes better insulation practices, they move towards a sustainable society—even though a particular energy source may

be unsustainable in the longer term

Identifying unsustainable practices means that society should also resist thinking about sustainability solely in terms of a ma-terialistic dimension That is, sustainability is much more than the idea that the flow of matter and energy through a system should not exhaust resources and pollute the environment 共Harremoes

1996兲 Sustainability encompasses a much greater range of under-standing, including socioeconomic factors such as world economy, social inclusion and exclusion, and planning and devel-opment For years, environmentalists have seen a basic conflict with a one-dimensional analysis, in that the real changes that are going to make a difference are not technological but behavioral They advocate that sustainability cannot be achieved without a fundamental change in mankind’s basic education, ethical values, and religious beliefs共Harremoes 1996; Wareham and Elefsiniotis 1996兲 Without a change in thinking, impelled by basic values and anchored in the concepts of rights and responsibilities, the present model of interaction with the environment will be doomed to remain ecologically destructive, primarily because it is ethically vacuous

The thesis that sustainability has an ethical dimension has been hinted at before 共Cywinski 2001; Wilkinson et al 2001兲 The ethical dimension however has to be more than rhetoric and must

be anchored in something tangible In other words, it must be an operational principle that restructures one’s relationship with the environment in a practical manner Only then will industries be able to establish environmental programs and long-range conser-vation policies For example, one of the 13 principles espoused by Manitoba Hydro with respect to sustainable development is waste minimization, which describes explicitly a hierarchy for waste management decisions that require the organization to eliminate

or reduce as the primary choice, followed by reuse and recycling, and finally, disposal of the waste in an environmentally sound manner共Manitoba Hydro 2000兲

If indeed, sustainability can be thought of as an ethical notion, then, just as for other ethical notions, it transforms itself into a declared activity rather than a defined activity It becomes there-fore of the same ilk as justice共that is seen to be done兲 and truth 共that is held to be self evident兲 If this is the case, then despite the

criticisms leveled earlier about the ISO 14000 series of standards,

it is advocated that the very act of declaration of an industry共i.e., bringing its EMS into conformance with the standards兲 is

funda-mentally in tune with the spirit of sustainability The ISO 14000

series in effect then becomes an ethical, but operational approach

to sustainable development

Conclusions

As has been discussed, the ISO 14000 environmental

manage-ment series of standards have a number of weaknesses These

include the facts that they do not define any environmental

per-formance goals and that the language is sometimes ambiguous,

which may give rise to different interpretations and complicate

implementation Despite this, their widespread adoption makes it

clear that they are seen by industries to be a reasonable tool for

the effective management of environmental responsibilities and

commitments One reason for this may be that they represent an

operational approach that, at the philosophical level, resonates

with the notion of sustainable development

Acknowledgments

The research for this paper was done while the senior author was

affiliated with the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Man.,

Canada Special thanks go to Ms Orly Loves who provided

some of the fundamental background information to this study

Also thanks go to Ms Shannon Graves who supplied some of the

references The financial assistance provided by Manitoba Hydro

and the support of the EMS team at Manitoba Hydro is gratefully

acknowledged and appreciated

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