ISO14001: A Deterrent against Environmental Degradation

ISO14001: A Deterrent against Environmental Degradation

Over the last few years, ISO 14001 has gained considerable support of business communities and governments worldwide. Business communities consider it a catalyst which ensures continued business and provides an opportunity to boost trade with customers overseas. Governments look at it as a useful agent to soften the local industry to comply with environmental legislation.

ISO 14001 is being pushed as an agenda, therefore, which will help in lowering environmental impacts that occur because of the manufacturing sector. On the surface, the picture is quite rosy.

For large manufacturers adopting ISO 14001 is quite practical and makes economic sense. The major assumption while formulating the ISO 14001 was that there is no informal manufacturing sector (because of poor representation and inactive role of the developing countries at TC207). Informal sector in Pakistan is a major component of the manufacturing sector and provides useful support to the formal sector. The informal sector exists within the populated areas, making it extremely hard to regulate. Therefore, the environmental impacts due to this sector are quite significant.

ISO 14001 requires the suppliers of a manufacturer to have an Environmental Management System (EMS) in place as well. For a supplier operating from a small facility in a congested area and meager resources, how can s/he be expected to hire a consultant to develop an EMS? In a country which has a significant informal manufacturing sector, high unemployment due to deteriorating economic condition, high inflation, limited resources, weak monitoring agencies and deteriorating infra-structure, with all these constraints, how is it possible for the manufacturing sector to adopt ISO 14001 in it’s true spirit?

Even if a manufacturer adopts the ISO 14001, what is the guarantee that s/he will get business? What is the incentive for the non-exporting manufacturers to adopt ISO 14001? How can the industry be convinced that ISO 14001 is an opportunity not an obstacle? Considering all these factors, this paper will analyze the current status of ISO 14001 adoption in Pakistan, reasons for adoption, deterrents in adoption, and recommendations on how those deterrents can either be removed or minimized, and it’s overall impact on the environment and economy.

Process Approach In ISO 9001 Standards

Process Approach In ISO 9001 Standards

The ISO 9001 International Standard promotes the adoption of a process approach when developing, implementing and improving the effectiveness of a quality management system, to enhance customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements.

For an organization to function effectively, it has to determine and manage numerous linked activities. An activity or set of activities using resources, and managed in order to enable the transformation of inputs into outputs, can be considered as a process. Often the output from one process directly forms the input to the next.

The application of a system of processes within an organization, together with the identification and interactions of these processes, and their management to produce the desired outcome, can be referred to as the “process approach”.

An advantage of the process approach is the ongoing control that it provides over the linkage between the individual processes within the system of processes, as well as over their combination and interaction.

When used within a quality management system, such an approach emphasizes the importance of

a) understanding and meeting requirements,

b) the need to consider processes in terms of added value,

c) obtaining results of process performance and effectiveness, and

d) continual improvement of processes based on objective measurement

ISO 9001 Standards & ISO 14001 Standards

In order to assist organizations to have a full understanding of the new ISO 9001:2008, it may be useful to have an insight on the revision process, how this revision reflects the inputs received from users of the standard, and the consideration given to benefits and impacts during its development.

Prior to the commencement of a revision (or amendment) to a management system standard, ISO/Guide 72:2001 Guidelines for the justification and development of management system standards recommends that a “Justification Study” is prepared to present a case for the proposed project and that it outlines details of the data and inputs used to support its arguments. In relation to the development of ISO 9001:2008 user needs were identified from the following:

-the results of a formal “Systematic Review” on ISO 9001:2000 that was performed by the members of ISO/TC 176/SC2 during 2003-2004
-feedback from the ISO/TC 176/Working Group on “Interpretations”
-the results of an extensive worldwide “User Feedback Survey on ISO 9001 and
The Justification Study identified the need for an amendment, provided that the impact on users would be limited and that changes would only be introduced when there were clear benefits to users.

The key focuses of the ISO 9001:2008 amendment were to enhance the clarity of ISO 9001:2000 and to enhance its compatibility with ISO 14001:2004.

A tool for assessing the impacts versus benefits for proposed changes was created to assist the drafters of the amendment in deciding which changes should be included, and to assist in the verification of drafts against the identified user needs. The following decision making principles were applied:

1) No changes with high impact would be incorporated into the standard;

2) Changes with medium impact would only be incorporated when they provided a correspondingly medium or high benefit to users of the standard;

3) Even where a change was low impact, it had to be justified by the benefits it delivered to users, before being incorporated.

The changes incorporated in this ISO 9001:2008 edition were classified in terms of impact into the following categories:

-No changes or minimum changes on user documents, including records

-No changes or minimum changes to existing processes of the organization

-No additional training required or minimal training required

-No effects on current certifications

The benefits identified for the ISO 9001:2008 edition fall into the following categories:

-Provides clarity

-Increases compatibility with ISO 14001.

-Maintains consistency with ISO 9000 family of standards.

-Improves translatability.