Are You Building an Environmental Management Systems or Are You Just Hanging Wallpaper, 1997 Process & Product Quality Conference Proceedings

Implementing an environmental management system is a little like renovating a house. You can decide to change the existing structural framework by adding new living areas, knocking down walls and upgrading the old plumbing and electrical fixtures. Or, you can slap on some paint, hang some wallpaper, change the carpet and move the furniture around. The differences are cost, level of effort, time, commitment and results. In building an environmental management system just like in undertaking a home renovation you have to ask yourself what you want to achieve. Is the primary goal IS0 registration? Or, are you looking for a long-term strategic change in the way you manage environmental performance? It is entirely possible to implement and receive registration for an IS0 14001 program that will not: * achieve compliance; * meet standards of due diligence; * improve environmental performance; nor * improve competitive advantage. It is important that top management clearly understand the difference in cost, level of effort, time, commitment and results between simply achieving IS0 registration and working toward long-term strategic change. The full benefits of implementing an environmental management system will only be realized when a company adopts a long term strategy aimed at making fundamental changes in the way the company does business, rather than relying on ad hoc projects and teams and special programs. Unfortunately, the implementation of IS0 14001 is too often: (1) undertaken as special project with a definite beginning and end; (2) viewed as a program that will be layered on top of and not integrated with ongoing business operations; and (3) perceived as an exercise simply requiring the documentation of existing practices. If IS0 14001 registration is your company’s primary goal then, mobilizing a project team to write up your existing practices into manuals and procedures, sprinkling a layer of IS0 14001 procedures on top of existing quality...