ISO 14000 is a business tool purchasing criterion passport to trade part of corporate reporting ISO 14001 is a voluntary standard: backed by international consensus recognized as a mechanism for risk management providing evidence of due diligence ISO 14001 leads a series of guidance standards to help you enhance productivity and reduce environmental impacts. The results – improved profitability. The ISO 14000 series addresses environmental management systems, environmental auditing, labelling, performance evaluation, and life cycle assessment. The core standard, I SO 14001, serves as an internationally recognized framework to manage, measure, evaluate, and audit your environmental performance alongside productivity improvements. They apply to any type or size of organization, be it for profit or not-for-profit from any economic region in the world. The Economist magazine (29 July 2002) summarized it well: "The usefulness of standards is embodied in a simple axiom: when everybody else is doing A, it is not such a good thing to do B." At this juncture, we do not yet have enough companies doing "A". When implemented using ISO 14001 as a foundation, you can ensure consistency in your environmental management practices, and harmonization with national environmental standards within a common global framework. Don’t underestimate the value of using ISO 14001 as the basis of your environmental management system. Like it or not you will be measured against it, and judged accordingly if you say you have an environmental management system. If you do not have an EMS, you run the risk of being passed over completely – you won’t even be a blip on the radar screen.

Have you heard "ISO 14001 establishes performance expectations that are too hard to meet?" Not so. It's one of the perceptual barriers or urban myths that surround the standard. While ISO 14001 does not set performance expectations, there are three commitments it exacts, to: legal compliance prevention of pollution continual improvement ISO 14001 is designed to be practical, useful and usable for companies or organizations of all sizes, in both manufacturing and service industries. Its presence is as important to government and non-governmental organizations as it is to the private sector. The barriers to adoption tend to be external to the standard. The Registry offers tools to lower these barriers and maintain the value of the standard. What you do does make a difference. The biggest single challenge to ISO 14001 is determining what it is your organization does, or what it has that causes impacts on the environment. It is one of the primary reasons that brought countries and businesses from around the world together to address environmental management. In the standard, the focus of the EMS is to better manage environmental aspects. These aspects have a cause and effect relationship; environmental impacts being the impact or consequence. Not everything your organization does is negative; not all impacts are significant. Determining the causes of these inefficiencies and better managing them eliminates cost and risk to your bottom line. At the same time you can reduce your organization's impact on the environment. The combined outcome is the primary benefit that underpins an environmental management system. Starting can be easy. Eco-mapping© is a simple, visual tool that can give the one-man operation or one-woman shop owner, insight into how to reduce these impacts and enhance productivity. Figuring this out is money in your pocket. Take five minutes to journey through your business with an eye for greening profit. Visit the EnviroReady Library.