These are:
BSI – British Standards Institution
BSI is responsible for standardisation issues in the UK, including environmental management. BSI also co-ordinates the views of interested parties in the UK on European and International developments. In the past, BSI published its own EMS (BS 7750). It now publishes ISO14001 in the UK in conjunction with ISO (see below).
ISO – International Organisation for Standardisation
Based in Geneva, ISO is responsible for international standardisation.
ISO publishes a series of standards on environmental management tools and systems.
Other related work conducted by ISO is that on:
- environmental auditing;
- environmental performance evaluation;
- environmental labelling; and
- life cycle assessment.
ISO 14000 and ISO 19000 series standards relevant to environmental management and auditing are:
|
Reference |
Title |
|
14001 |
Environmental management systems – Requirements with guidance for use. 2004 edition is in use. |
|
14004 |
Environmental Management systems – general guidance on principles, systems and supporting techniques. |
|
19011 |
Guidelines for auditing – general principles Relevant to quality and environmental auditing. |
CEN – European Committee for Standardisation
CEN is the association of national standard bodies of the EU. It is based in Brussels. It handles all EC standardisation issues except the areas of electro technology (CENELEC) and telecommunications (ETSI).
CEN has not embarked on an independent programme of environmental management standardisation, despite the existence of EMAS, but has let ISO take the lead. CEN has adopted ISO 14001 as the relevant European standard.
Eco Management and Audit Scheme – EMAS
This scheme was introduced by EC Regulation in 1993 and was revised and reissued in April 2001. The revised version is known as EMAS II. Although this is a European Regulation and, therefore, a legal document in all member states of the EU, participation in the scheme is completely voluntary.
EMAS requires an organisation to have a written environmental management system and also requires independent verification of compliance and the production of a public environmental statement. The EMS element may be a system, which also conforms to ISO14001.
Because it has a requirement to produce externally audited annual reports, EMAS has been far less popular in the UK than ISO14001. There are thousands of ISO14001 registered organisations in the UK, but by early 2005 the number of EMAS registered organisations had slipped down into double-figures.
However, other pressures for organisations to produce public reports on environmental performance (e.g. IPPC, corporate social responsibility (see IPPC in emissions overview and CSR in sustainable development) mean that this disadvantage will become less significant with time.