Environmental Management Systems (EMS) attract a lot of attention, particularly with the development of the ISO 14000 series of international standards. It seems that the term 'ISO 14000' appears in many environmental publications.

ISO 14000 refers to a series of standards being developed by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO). The series overall is focused on environmental management. The 'flagship' for the ISO 14000 series is a standard number ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems with guidance for use, along with ISO 14004 Environmental Management Systems - General guidelines on principles, systems and supporting technique.

These standards are based on similar principles to the ISO 9000 Quality Management series of standards. This means that an Environmental Management System, as defined in ISO 14001, includes the following key elements:

Commitment: An organisation should focus on what needs to be done - it should ensure commitment to the EMS and define its policy.

Planning: An organisation should formulate a plan to fulfil its environmental policy.

Implementation: An organisation should develop the capabilities and support mechanisms necessary to achieve its environmental policy, objectives and targets.

Check: An organisation should measure, monitor and evaluate its environmental performance.

Review: An organisation should review and continually improve its environmental management system, with the object of improving its overall environmental performance.

In this way an organisation, in developing an Environmental Management System, nominates its own environmental goals; plans to achieve them; monitors its own performance; and accepts a commitment to continual improvement of its own performance.

An Environmental Management System is a tool which can help companies meet their environmental obligations (e.g. resource consent requirements) and, ideally, reduce their environmental effects. This can be done through adoption of Cleaner Production techniques and the search for further improvements.

In the future an Environmental Management System may also provide easier access to international markets, by providing evidence of companies' environmental commitment and performance.

But the scope of the ISO 14000 series goes far beyond these two Environmental Management System standards. The International Organisation for Standardisation has set up six sub committees to develop standards in six key environmental areas - the ISO 14001/14004 standards are the product of just one of these committees. The six sub committees are:

1. Environmental Management Systems (e.g. 14001, 14004)
2. Environmental Auditing (14010 series)
3. Environmental Labelling (14020 series)
4. Environmental Performance Evaluation (14030 series)
5. Life Cycle Assessment (14040 series)
6. Terms and Definitions (14050 series)

Most of the standards being worked on by these committees are still in the developmental stage. New Zealand input into these standards is being organised by Standards New Zealand.