How to make ISO 14001 implementation easier for small businesses

摘要

It has been suggested that the ISO 14001 environmental management system (EMS) standard is not really suited to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), but instead is of more benefit to big organizations. Since there are an estimated 100 million SMEs worldwide, that is a lot of organizations that might potentially be missing out on the proven advantages of ISO 14001 implementation. What can be done to encourage more SMEs to do so? Help is at hand. As previously reported, an ISO working group is developing recommendations on how to make it easier for SMEs to benefit from ISO 14001 (see "Good response to online survey on ISO 14001 and small businesses", ISO Management Systems May-June 2005, and "Lessons of the ISO 14001 SME survey and the path forward", ISO Management Systems September-October 2005).