TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT, VOL. 11, NOS.

4/5&6, 2000, S767± S772

Ecomanagement quality system: ISO 14000.

The state of the art in Italy

Maria Proto & Stefania Supino

UniversitaÁ degli Studi di Salerno, Facolta
Á di Economia, Via Ponte Don MelilloÐ 84084 Fisciano
(Salerno), Italy

Introduction
In the last two decades environmental problems have increasingly become the centre of
attention, raising the level of consideration of government, productive industries, legislative
organs and common people on the need to contain risks that human activities have on the
ecosystems.
As a result of international interest in the environmental issue, various governmental,
non-governmental and industrial initiatives have been adopted in order to establish sets of
principles, criteria, codes of conduct and standards as a voluntary policy tool to improve
environmental performance and help achieve sustainability (Proto et al., 1996).
Voluntary initiatives represent a more eVective and desirable alternative to the `command
and control’ policies: they provide ¯ exibility for businesses to reach desired goals in the most
eVective manner.
The environmental dimension, once considered a marginal problem or a bond, has today
gathered a character of coessentiality as regards the conventional factors of management, to
the point that it has become one of the most important factors in reaching competitive
advantages (Porter & Van Der Linde, 1996).
In the light of the large consensus obtained from the adoption of voluntary schemes,
such as the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme and the ISO 14000 environmental
standards, this paper analyses the state of the art in Italy.

The ISO 14000 standards

The family of environmental standards ISO 14000 was developed by the ISO Technical
Committee ISO /TC207 and published in September 1996. When ISO 14000 was introduced,
many companies viewed the new international standard as a natural extension of the quality
management system.
Just as total quality management (TQM) demands a goal of zero defects, as they are clear
indicators of ineYciency in the design of processes and products and services, similarly the
new approach, total quality environmental management, considers every environmental
impact as an indicator of ineYciency in the use of materials and energy. It aims to improve
eYciency and quality by eliminating emissions, eZuents and accident. The new concept of

ISSN 0954-4127 print/ISSN 1360-0613 online/00/04S767-06 € 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd
S768 M. PROTO & S. SUPINO

sustainable development requires a comprehensive approach of the issues related to product

quality by making better use of resources and providing environmental protection (Proto,
1999).
The ISO 14000 series is a set of generic tools for developing, implementing maintaining
and evaluating environmental policies and objectives; the series contains standards for
environmental management systems, environmental auditing, life-cycle assessment, environ-
mental labelling and environmental performance evaluation. The best known standard in this
series is ISO 14001, which speci® es the requirements for an environmental management
system (EMS) and provides the basis for certi® cation of an organization’ s EMS.
The philosophy behind this set-up is that the EMS of an organization is of central
importance and that the other standards are intended to support speci® c elements of the
organization’ s environmental policy and management system.
The ISO 14000 family of international standards and their relationship are demonstrated
in schematic form in Tables 1 and Fig. 1.
The ISO 14000 series does not interfere with any national environmental legislation.
The setting of limit values and performance levels remains the prerogative of national

Table 1. Structure of the ISO 14000

ISO International Standards

ISO Guide 64:1997 Guide for the inclusion of environmental aspects in product standard
ISO 14001:1996 Environmental management systemsÐ speci® cation with guidance for use
ISO 14004:1996 Environmental management systemsÐ general guidelines on principles, systems
and supporting techniques
ISO 14010:1996 Guidelines for environmental auditingÐ general principles
ISO 14011:1996 Guidelines for environmental auditingÐ audit proceduresÐ auditing of
environmental management systems
ISO 14012:1996 Guidelines for environmental auditingÐ quali® cation criteria for environmental
auditors
ISO 14040:1997 Environmental managementÐ life-cycle assessmentÐ principles and framework

Draft International Standards (DIS)

ISO/DIS 14020 Environmental labels and declarationsÐ general principles
ISO/DIS 14021 Environmental labels and declarationsÐ self-declaration environmental
claimsÐ guidelines and de® nition and usage of terms
ISO/DIS 14024 Environmental labels and declarationsÐ type of environmental labellingÐ guiding
principles and procedures
ISO/DIS 14041 Environmental managementÐ life-cycle assessmentÐ goal and scope de® nition
and inventory analysis
ISO/DIS 14050 Environmental managementÐ vocabulary

Committee Draft (CD)

ISO/CD 14031 Environmental performance evaluationÐ guidelines
ISO/CD 14042 Environmental managementÐ life-cycle assessmentÐ life cycle impact assessment
ISO/CD 14043 Environmental managementÐ life cycle assessmentÐ life cycle interpretation

Working Draft (WD)

ISO/WD 14061 Guidance to assist forestry organizations in the use of ISO 14001 and ISO 14004
(future type 3 technical report)

New Proposal (NP)

ISO/NP 14049 Environmental managementÐ life-cycle assessmentÐ examples for the application
of ISO 14041 (future type 3 technical report)
 ECOMANAGEMENT QUALITY SYSTEM S769

Figure 1. The relationship between the standards in the ISO 14000 series (Hortensius, 1999).

governmental authorities. The ISO 14000 series goes beyond mere compliance with environ-
mental legislation. It encourages a systematic examination of all areas where an organization’ s
activities have an impact on the environment and can yield bottom-line bene® ts such as
reduced waste and savings in consumption of energy and materials.
An ISO 14001-certi® ed EMS provides certainty to external parties that an organization
has control over the signi® cant environmental aspects of its operational processes, that it has
committed itself to comply with all relevant environmental legislation and regulation and to
improve continually its overall environmental performance.
Key elements of the ISO 14001 EMS are:

· the environmental policy and the requirements to pursue this policy via objectives,
targets and environmental programmes;
· the analysis of the environmental aspects of the organizations, including its processes,
products and services, as well as goods and services used by the organization;
· implementation and organization of processes to control and improve operational
activities that are critical from an environmental perspective;
· monitoring and measurement and corrective actions to ensure that objectives and
target will be achieved;
· conduct of audits to determine whether the EMS is indeed well functioning and
conduct of management reviews to address the possible need for changing the policy
and objectives to ensure the continuing suitability, adequacy and eVectiveness of the
EMS.

Therefore, it is useful to underline that in an environmental policy, the organization should

include the following basic commitments: (a) compliance with relevant registration and regula-
tions; (b) continual improvement in overall environmental performance; and (c) prevention
of pollution. An important principle of ISO 14001 is that it does not establish absolute
environmental performance requirements.
The organization itself, taking into account the three basic commitments mentioned
above, must formulate its own environmental policy and therefore determine its own
objectives and level of ambition with respect to environmental performance. Sceptics see this
as a weakness of ISO 14001; promoters of the standard consider this as its strength: ISO
14001 provides a management tool to prove the eYciency and eYcacy `on the ® eld’ to
S770 M. PROTO & S. SUPINO

Table 2. `Top 10’ ISO 14001 countries world-wide

(ANPA, 1999)

Country ISO 14001

Certi® cations

1. Japan 2531
2. Germany 1460
3. UK 1009
4. Sweden 850
5. US 520
6. Taiwan 506
7. Netherlands 475
8. Korea 463
9. Switzerland 413
10. France 367

Dated November 1999.

achieve the environmental objectives that are relevant to the processes, products or service
of the organization (Sheldon, 1998). Therefore, the ISO 14001 standard is really a manage-
ment system standard that is applicable world-wide and does need to be changed or adapted
to local or regional circumstances.
The ISO 14000 environmental management standards, in fact, are rapidly adopted.
Since the ® rst were published in September 1996 about 11 000 EMSs in 55 countries have
already been certi® ed to ISO 14001 (ANPA, 1999).
In Table 2, the `top 10’ ISO 14000 countries world-wide are reported.
In Europe, the great success of ISO 14000 environmental standards has almost started
to overshadow the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS)Ð even though it was
established in 1999Ð and the European Commission is now revising the European Union
scheme.
EMAS is a European Union voluntary programme aimed at encouraging corporate
responsibility, allowing businesses to address environmental issues within the framework of
their economic considerations. Although participation is voluntary, companies must adhere
to all of the scheme’s requirements once they have agreed to seek EMAS registration. These
requirements include compliance with all applicable environmental regulations. Implementa-
tion is certi® ed by an accredited independent veri® er. The scheme’s goals are not only to
improve environmental performance and foster regulatory compliance, but also to communi-
cate environmental performance information to the public.
The European Commission has published its proposals for revision of the EU’s voluntary
scheme, substantially aligning it more closely to the ISO 14000 format. In fact, a key change
is a proposal to open EMAS to all organizations, not just industrial sites. EMAS IIÐ planned
for the middle of the year 2000Ð incorporates the ISO 14000 programme as a way of meeting
the EMAS environmental management system requirement.
This aims at eliminating any duplication of work created by implementation of both
systems, while retaining the EMAS requirements that take the scheme farther than ISO
14000. These requirements include a commitment to continual improvement in environ-
mental performance, compliance with environmental legislation and publication of a state-
ment on environmental impact and performance.
Furthermore, the Commission wants to introduce a logo to increase the EMAS
programme’ s visibility and recognition.
 ECOMANAGEMENT QUALITY SYSTEM S771

Table 3. Trend in ISO 14000 and ISO 9000 certi® cations

(Sincert, 2000)

Environmental
management
Year Quality system system

1991 163 0
1992 353 0
1993 825 0
1994 1.628 0
1995 3.123 0
1996 5.236 20
1997 8.729 49
1998 13.977 106
1999 21.427 247

Dated December 1999.

The state of the art in Italy

Since its launch in Italy in 1996, the ISO 14000 EMS certi® cation scheme has made good
progress. Although the adoption of ISO 14000 by industry is voluntary, 247 certi® cations
have already been eVectuated up until December 1999.
In Table 3 the trend in ISO 14000 certi® cation in Italy, related to ISO 9000, is illustrated.
Although the number of ISO 14000 certi® cations is still not particularly elevatedÐ overall
if confronted with the number of the certi® cations of ISO 9000 seriesÐ the fast increasing
trend of the last few years suggests further development and better performance in the near
future.
It is also to the credit of the private sector that a number of key industries have
formulated voluntary codes of environmental management practice; it is the case, for example,
of the chemical industry that has adopted the Responsible Care Programme. Based on 10
guiding principles, this programme advocates that priority be given to health, safety and
environmental issues in the planning of product and processes (Proto et al., 1999).
Certainly, many challenges have to be overcome: ® rst of all to spread the adoption of
ecomanagement standards through the unbounded universe of medium, small and very small
enterprises, which represent a very large part of the total number of enterprises operating in
Italy and in Europe too, and are the true backbone of their industrial system (Biondi V. et al,
1998).
To encourage small and medium enterprises to adopt environmental controls, the Italian
government should provide technical and ® nancial support and/or economic incentives.
In the future, it could be useful for both the voluntary environmental management
schemesÐ ISO 14000 and EMASÐ to be revised to include measures aimed at facilitating
and simplifying adhesion by small and medium enterprises, taking into account their
speci® cities and needs.

Conclusions
Further development of environmental management schemes, like EMAS and ISO 14001,
as well as all the other tools for ecomanagement, are going to play central roles in the
industrial world of the new millennium.
The progressive acceptance of the principles associated with social responsibility is
S772 M. PROTO & S. SUPINO

leading the organizations to be particularly sensitive to social needs, including environmental

problems. Certainly, many eVorts are needed in order to reach a total approach to environ-
mental management and control in Italy.
DiVusing the experience on bene® ts and advantages that result from the adoption of an
environmental management standard is one of the best ways of promoting small and medium
enterprises’ participation.
Empirical evidence emphasizes the relevant bene® ts and possible advantages for organiza-
tions which can be achieved by adopting environmental management systems. First, they
improve the capacity of managing and controlling their environmental performance, by
continuously monitoring their activities, systematically registering and evaluating environ-
mental eVects and periodically verifying the eVectiveness of the whole system. A second
relevant bene® t emerges from a better de® nition of responsibilities and tasks, achieved
through the de® nition of formal documents. Finally, it is necessary not to forget the potential
bene® ts connected with an integrated management of quality and environmental issues, due
to possible synergies and utilization of common tools.
Therefore, the adoption of an EMS provides goodwill, credibility, reduced liability risk,
increased productivity, competitive advantages, cost savings and, ultimately, pro® tability.

References
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