Sustainability Practices in Organizations - Standards

Standards

Enormous economic and population growth worldwide in the second half of the twentieth century aggravated the factors that threaten health and the world — ozone depletion, climate change, depletion, fouling of natural resources, and extensive loss of biodiversity and habitat. In the past, the standard approaches to environmental problems generated by business and industry have been regulatory-driven "end-of-the-pipe" remediation efforts. In the 1990s, efforts by governments, NGOs, corporations, and investors began to grow substantially to develop awareness and plans for investment in business sustainability.

One critical milestone was the establishment of the ISO 14000 standards whose development came as a result of the Rio Summit on the Environment held in 1992. ISO 14001 is the cornerstone standard of the ISO 14000 series. It specifies a framework of control for an Environmental Management System against which an organization can be certified by a third party. Other ISO 14000 Series Standards are actually guidelines, many to help you achieve registration to ISO 14001. They include the following:

• ISO 14004 provides guidance on the development and implementation of environmental management systems
• ISO 14010 provides general principles of environmental auditing (now superseded by ISO 19011)
• ISO 14011 provides specific guidance on audit an environmental management system (now superseded by ISO 19011)
• ISO 14012 provides guidance on qualification criteria for environmental auditors and lead auditors (now superseded by ISO 19011)
• ISO 14013/5 provides audit program review and assessment material.
• ISO 14020+ labeling issues
• ISO 14030+ provides guidance on performance targets and monitoring within an Environmental Management System
• ISO 14040+ covers life cycle issues