Environmental management and other management standards

ISO's portfolio of generic management systems standards was extended beyond quality during the 1990s.

In particular, the establishment of the ISO technical committee ISO/TC 207, Environmental management, was the result of a sequence of activities, leading to a coordinated world response to common environmental challenges.

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Earth Summit, was a major conference held in Rio de Janeiro from 3-14 June 1992, attended by 110 heads of State and a total of 172 governments. Some 2 400 representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attended, with 17 000 people at the parallel NGO Forum who had so-called "consultative status".

UNCED issued the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, a set of principles for achieving sustainable development, along with Agenda 21, a comprehensive policy guidance document, and a number of agreements - including the Framework Convention on Climate Change which in turn led to the Kyoto Protocol.

Environmental concerns were not new in ISO. For example, ISO technical committees developing standards for air and water quality were established in 1971.

However, the focus on environmental standards intensified in the preparatory period leading up to the 1992 Earth Summit, in which ISO and its partner IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) became directly involved. UNCED wanted to ensure that business was fully engaged in the process. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) was established as a result of these efforts. This WBCSD approached the two international standards organizations to see what they were doing in the area of environmental management and to encourage them to become more active.

This request from WBCSD came at a time when work was already in progress within the ISO/IEC Presidents' Advisory Board on Technical Trends and other instances of the two organizations. As a result, in August 1991, ISO and IEC formally established the Strategic Advisory Group on the Environment (SAGE) to study the situation and make recommendations.

The SAGE process had two major end products:

1. a series of ISO/IEC recommendations on environmental management, which were submitted to the UNCED preparatory conference in January 1992; and
2. in October 1992, a recommendation to create a new ISO technical committee to develop standards in the area of environmental management.

The recommendations to UNCED became a key element of the major documents that came out of that conference, Agenda 21, and the Rio Declaration.

The recommendation to ISO and IEC led to the creation in 1993 of ISO/TC 207, Environmental management, which held its inaugural plenary session in Toronto in June of 1993. Its first standard, ISO 14001, Environmental management systems -- Specification with guidance for use was published in 1996 (ISO/TC 207 News article, PDF, 132 kB).

The tremendous impact of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 on organizational practices and on trade has stimulated the development of other ISO standards and deliverables that adapt the generic management system to specific sectors or aspects.

• Food safety
• Information security
• Supply chain security
• Medical devices
• Local government
• Education

• Next chapter: The Vienna Agreement