ISO 14001 EMS standard registration decisions among Canadian organizations

Abstract

This study characterized the costs and benefits associated with adopting ISO 14001 environmental management system (EMS) standard, based on a survey of ISO 14001-registered organizations in Canada. Decision makers are contemplating whether it is necessary to register to one or more of the ISO and other international standards and, if so, which ones. Furthermore, an organization that has registered separate departments to different standards and contemplates integrating such standards across the different units may be interested in attributes of particular units that will facilitate integration. Discriminant analysis was conducted to characterize the factors that distinguish between organizations that adopted ISO 14001 alone (single standard), versus those that registered to ISO 14001 along with other quality, health, and safety standards (i.e., multiple standards). The most important factor that motivated adoption to ISO 14001 was to establish a positive environmental profile, thereby promoting goodwill and integrity. Internal factors tended to dominate the motivations for adopting ISO 14001, supporting the hypothesis that external benefits may not be fully realized due to market and policy failure. Internal costs associated with registration depended on the size of the organization and ranged, on average, from CND$17,000 (for organizations with less than 100 employees), to CND$42,000 (for organizations with more than 500 employees). External costs depended more on the type (i.e., sector of the Canadian economy) than on size of the organization. The most important variable that distinguished between Canadian organizations that adopted ISO 14001 alone versus those that adopted ISO 14001 and other standards was whether the organization had an international orientation, that is, those with more than 50% of services or exports to other countries. [EconLit citations: L150, L200, Q290]. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 19: 439-457, 2003.

Renewing environmental certification in times of crisis

“…Bansal and Hunter, 2003;Delmas, 2001;González-Benito and González-Benito, 2005;Yin and Schmeidler, 2009), although their pitfalls and drawbacks have also been highlighted in the literature (Jiang and Bansal, 2003;Christmann and Taylor, 2006;Boiral, 2007Boiral, , 2011. Empirical studies have highlighted the positive impacts of EMSs certification on various issues such as business productivity and effectiveness (Pan, 2003;Poksinska et al, 2003;Delmas, 2001), minimization of environmental problems (Bansal and Bogner, 2002;Melnyk et al, 2002), image improvement (Chin and Pun, 1999;Zeng et al, 2005), compliance with laws and regulations (Yiridoe et al, 2003;Heras-Saizarbitoria et al, 2011), competitiveness (Kollman and Prakash, 2001;Corbett and Russo, 2001;Montabon et al, 2000;Florida and Davison, 2001), environmental performance (Rondinelli and Vastag, 2000;Russo and Harrison, 2001;King and Lenox, 2001;Tan, 2005;Link and Naveh, 2006), and employee motivation (Rondinelli and Vastag, 2000).…”

Sustainability and EMAS: Impact of Motivations and Barriers on the Perceived Benefits from the Adoption of Standards

“…-Improved image [10,11,18,36,61,62]. -Compliance with laws and regulations [15,34,59]. -Increase in competitiveness [10,18,24,29].…”

“…The most used In this sense, many are the motivations found by studies conducted and forming part of both approaches, which are not mutually exclusive and reinforce each other [33]. Among those, we can mention (in Heras et al [34] (p. 195), you can see a summary of the empirical literature on the motivations for adopting the ISO 14001 standard): -Satisfying pressure from customers, suppliers and other stakeholders [9,14,15,[35][36][37]. -Ensuring compliance with the legislation [11,14,17,35].…”

“…-Cost reduction [9,14,35,37]. -Others: senior management concern [14], increase in efficiency, competitiveness and productivity [15,36,37], new market opportunities and continuous improvement [37].…”

Environmental performance improvement and ISO 14001: case of Lebanon

“…These motivating factors are classified into internal and external drivers (Yiridoe and Stephen [3]). The most important motivating factors vary particularly according to the type of industry and the country.…”