There is an increasing emphasis on the management of environmental factors affecting our personal lives, our community and the world at large. As individuals, it is difficult to see how our contribution can have any effect on the grand scheme of things, but equally, any large scale change comes about as a consequence of numerous small changes. Individual initiatives tend to be focussed more on cash savings than on the general good - no harm in that, but overall, no great benefit either.



At the administrative level, much is being done by government and by local authorities to conserve energy and limit waste, particularly through recycling schemes, and because this has a financial benefit to local authorities through the levy on buried waste, and on individuals through the reduction in energy costs, this will continue for the foreseeable future.

The focus of this article is on the corporate approach to environmental management.

Clearly, the benefits that accrue to individuals through waste reduction and recycling schemes are available to commerce and industry; however, additional benefits can come from an independent recognition of an organisation's commitment to environmental management. Stockholders have come to make out that a corporate concern for the environment is good management practice, and that this good practice can be a sign of excellence across the organisation. Share price - a measure of management success, is enhanced by this recognition. Share value equals company value.

But what of this independent recognition? How is it achieved and at what cost, and are the costs really matched by the benefits?

Organisations large and small have adopted the ISO9001 Quality Management Standard as a mechanism to demonstrate in some way their concern for customer and stakeholder interests. Few companies of significance now operate outside the ISO9001 registration scheme, and while some might argue that ISO9001 has not materially affected their business performance, a large proportion claim to hold on to their registration simply because the market believes differently.

Whatever the real truth may be, this one fact is clear; companies holding an ISO9001 registration are well on the way to being qualified for ISO14001 (Environmental Management System) registration if the implementation is carried out efficiently and effectively.

ISO14001 appears to be similar to its companion Standard (ISO9001), but in detail its requirements are structured with a different emphasis. While the 9001 document tends to demand certain attributes and actions, its companion, in essence, requires only that the organisation develops a working program to move towards a series of environmental improvements, over a time period agreed amongst the interested parties. In this way environmental improvement is a steady improvement process structured to suit the ability of the organisation to achieve its goals. This steady improvement is in opposition to the ISO9001 structure that demands compliance from the outset.

ISO14001 has a number of documentation and operational requirements, the 'housekeeping requirements 'aimed at managing and monitoring the improvement in environmental performance that already exist within the Quality Management System, requiring comparatively little adjustment to fit into an integrated management system. Integrating the Environmental aspects of ISO 14001 into an existing ISO9001 Quality Management System should therefore be a straightforward task, dependant only on the manner in which the original documentation was assembled. The application of these Standards can be a straightforward matter, however, only when there is a clear understanding of the intent, as opposed to the letter, of each requirement, with effort being applied to minimising the bureaucracy of the application. Unfortunately, the reverse was often true during the early days of ISO9001 implementation, with the quality of the application task being measured by the quantity of documents produced.

For achieving maximum benefit from a Dual Standard management system, a review of the original documentation followed by a rationalisation exercise is the ideal route. Having reached a stable and acceptable system, compliant with the Quality Management Standard, the development of an integrated system combining the Standard for Quality and Environment is comparatively straightforward.

Organisations determined to embrace this route should beware of consultants offering to carry out the task for the traditional 'Daily Rate' compensation. That method of payment for services leads inevitably to overpayment, due either to greed or a lack of understanding on the part of the contractor.

Copyright (c) 2008 Ed Bones