Conformance with the ISO 14001 standard—results of gap analyses at selected department of the army installations

Abstract

Based on Department of Defense (DOD) policy guidance, the Department of the Army first adopted its Environmental Audit Program in 1985. Effective October 1991, the Army Environmental Audit Program was revised and redesignated as the Environmental Compliance Assessment System (ECAS) Program. The ECAS audits began to evaluate the installation's overall Environmental Program Management (EPM) and Environmental Management Systems (EMSs). The purpose of the EPM/EMS aspect of ECAS audits was to determine more systematic “root causes” for observed compliance problems. With the adoption of the ISO 14001 standard, the EPM/EMS portion of the ECAS protocol was revised to more closely mirror that standard.

DOD has initiated a two-year pilot effort to evaluate the feasibility of ISO 14001 implementation at selected DOD installations. This DOD pilot program focuses both on implementation costs and on increased efficiency associated with more effective integration of installation-level EMS.

In anticipation of a favorable endorsement of the ISO 14001 framework for installation-EMS, several Army installations have begun to perform their own gap analyses to determine their conformance to the various parts of the standard. This article describes the results of EMS audits (gap analyses) at nine Army installations. Major nonconformances observed at each installation and corrective actions are also discussed.