Strengths and Weaknesses of ISO 140001
Before the ISO 140001 was established, organizations were maintaining their own environmental management systems establishing their own strategies and goals relating to environment. It was getting difficult to take the cost of building EMS both in monetary terms and time.
Therefore, a lot of organization chose to certify them with ISO 140001. Around 10,000 companies around the world are registered with ISO 140001 and it has started to become an international standard.
Weaknesses of ISO 140001
Environmental standards
The ISO 14001 does not give any specific criteria or standards that should be applied to protect the environment. It rather urges organizations to design and adopt measures that would protect the environment and would benefit the environment in a positive manner. This implies that it is upon organizations on an individual basis whether to adopt strict measures or not.
The approach of ISO 14001 towards environmental protection implied that there is no guarantee of significant impact on environment of such act and neither will there be any continuous improvement with such approach.
Awareness for all
The ISO standards require that all organizations should disclose their policies and standards regarding environment to the public as well as to other external parties. The awareness is necessary to ensure that the company is doing the right thing and so that public can create organizations image keeping in mind its environmental initiatives.
But this initiative has been criticized because public is not aware of any such information and apart from that it is also thought that this standard has been made just to publicize and market ISO, itself.
Mere symbol
ISO is making large profits due to the fact that the organizational managers, whatever level of hierarchal position they hold, will not get the chance to visit each manufacturing site they out source to and are then willing to agree to foreign third party qualifications in a foreign country as an evidence of a certain level of achievement. Hence, this leads to a thought that whether ISO 40001 has just become a mere symbol that too an expensive symbol which every organization wants to purchase to represent itself as one of the very environmentally aware organization. The standard that was once started off to trigger some environmental benefits is now mere label for the organization.
Transparency and Consistency
ISO has been criticized of for its inconsistent standards as well criticized for its transparency. Firms are required to publicly reveal their activities but it has been seen that firms are not to publicize accurate results. Hence, the transparency is hampered due to inaccurate results. Secondly, ISO has not applied its measures consistently in all organizations and this is probably because its framework is very broad which gives organizations to escape a lot of regulatory compliances imposed by ISO 140001.
It failed to remove the multiple standards that already existed in the market which it was aimed for. This has frustrated the management for example CEO of Birmingham Steel says that he wishes no one faces ISO 140001. Cynthia Martincic, 2007
Abiding by the regulation
ISO 40001 also focused on ensuring that the regulations and laws should be abided by the parties. But is has been unsuccessful in achieving this motive because there are no tangible incentives for the organizations in complying by the regulations therefore, they do not feel the need to comply by such rules. The organizations spend a lot of time in fulfilling the reporting and investigation requirements.
If something really needs to be done for the environment the efforts should then be directed towards activities that improve environment instead of making organization get stuck in such non value addition activities of heavy reporting.
Narrow focus
The ISO 40001 fails to emphasize on reducing the costs and saving the energy resources. The organizations are mostly seen to use excessive energy which in the most cases is rather a waste. In the time of energy shortage and hiking fuel prices it becomes very important to obligate the organizations to reduce the energy usage by using the energy saving equipments and avoid unnecessary usage but ISO 140001 does not have any regulations relating to such savings. Jack Rockstad, n.d
Drive
The organizations have nothing to drive them towards environmental conservation. The reason is that organizations have not been given any short term benefits by the ISO 140001 for which they would adopt such measures. The ISO 140001 has been unsuccessful in creating commitment. The ISO 40001 has failed to market the environmental activities and define its purpose.
Strengths of ISO 140001
The strengths of an ISO 14000 lie in both both short and long term goals. To increase long term advantages, a long term perspective should be adopted and supported by management. If the long term is exchanged for short term goals, long term advantages will be accomplished.
Trade within and across boundaries
The main purpose of ISO 14001 is to flourish trade by creating non tariff barriers for trade and to change the organizations legal compulsions. ISO has been successful in the way it marketed itself for trade purposes. It has been widely accepted initiative of ISO.
Quality Standards
ISO offers the organizations a management system which helps organizations maintain and make better the environmental objectives. The management system has been by keeping in mind that it should address the needs of a wide range of parties. This is the strength of the ISO since it creates uniform benchmarks and standards for all organizations. This helps increase the efficiency of the organizations measures to achieve organizations environmental objectives. Such standard helps maintain quality standards of environmental objectives and operations.
Opportunities from the Market
Several markets that are concerned with environment have now been open by the introduction of environmental standards. For example, European market which has always been very concerned about the environment.
Employee Motivation and Customer Drive
Employees have been motivated by high morals as they see their company engaging in environmental friendly activities. Such dedication of the organization towards environment makes them motivated to contribute to organizational goals which are directly proportional to environment improvement.
Cost reductions in Waste
Organizations have been wasting a lot of monetary resources by disposing of waste. By introducing the regulations to conserve the environment organizational cost of disposing waste has increased. Such an increase in cost has led to increase in prices due to which organizations began finding ways to counter these increasing costs.
In an effort to find ways to reduce the costs organizations have led to environmental benefits as well as increase in profits. E.g. 3M corp started, Pollution Prevention Pays program. This well known program led to a lot of successful creations such as use of water as adhesive tapes. The program started in 1975 and since then the company has been able to fetch profits of around 1 billion. Apart from making such profits it has also been able to improve its standing in environmental initiatives by reducing air emissions, indecomposable waste and water pollution elements. It has been recognized as second best Company for staying committed to environment. Such has been the contribution of ISO 140001.
For example, Ford certified all its facilities with ISO 140001 by 1999. The corporate philosophy of Ford is that environmental excellence is both the good business and corporate citizenship. Ford replaced all its cardboard boxes with plastic carriers which could be reduced. Likewise, Ford has been successful in recycling tons and tons of waste materials since it adopted IS) 140001.
Reduction in Environmental Liability
When an organization manages its environmental activities by managing its processes then its liability to the environment is reduced which it otherwise, it creates by deteriorating the environment.
For example, Tytex Incorporation is one of the first organizations to adopt ISO 140001 and since it has certified itself for the standard it has been able to decrease its usage of electricity by 26, gas consumption by 24 and water consumption by 21.
Employee contribution
The ISO 140001 is not a discipline that requires involvement of any single individual rather it requires involvement by entire organization i.e. every employee within this organization. Apart from benefitting the society it helps individuals realize their responsibilities towards the environment.
Opportunities from the Market
Several markets that are concerned with environment have now been open by the introduction of environmental standards. This includes European market which has always been very concerned about the environment.
Employee Motivation and Customer Drive
Employees have been motivated by high morals as they see their company engaging in environmental friendly activities. Such dedication of the organization towards environment makes them motivated to contribute to organization goals which are directly proportional to environment improvement. Acushnet Rubber which is in Bedford is a good example of this. The company molds rubbers and has around 1100 employees. Its CEO Jack Bailey says that it implemented ISO 140001 to get customer demand and reduce employee turnover.
Conclusion
In an epitome, when ISO 140001 was introduced the organizations certified themselves for varying reason that includes increased profitability, improved image and ability to perform corporate social responsibility. Since then the many large organizations have been pressurizing their suppliers to comply with environmental standards which has a multiplier effect. Governmental level organizations are getting more exposure to company information which will help making future decisions and strategies based on some objective information.
A lot of companies were and still are spending a lot of time in activities which are required by ISO 140001 but still they are not registered with ISO 140001. It is important that registration authorities market ISO 140001 and its benefits to ensure that all companies are complying by the standard. (Paul Honen, 2008)
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