ISO 14001: What Good Does It Do?

摘要

There's considerable interest in whether implementation of an environmental management system (EMS) improves environmental performance. In particular, do companies that use ISO 14001 have better environmental performance? In some ways, this is an odd question, as better environmental performance was not an objective of the ISO 14001 EMS. However, ISO supporters claim that conformance with ISO 14001 results in better legal compliance, and reductions in spills and accidents. This claim is supported by earlier research on the factors that lead to accidents. For example, John Braithwaite's 1985 groundbreaking study of coal mine safety concluded that a small number of organizational defects were characteristic of most of the disasters in which five or more miners died. These include: poor or no planning to deal with hazards; a general pattern of sloppiness in relation to safety; poor internal communication; inadequate staff training; and, inadequate definition of responsibilities. These are the very defects that a formal EMS like ISO 14001 should overcome.