ISO 14000 and the CEMP: Either, neither, or both for federal agencies?

Strategies for successfully managing environmental programs have been evolving during the last decade. As environmental programs have matured, the management strategies have moved from a regulation-based, compliance-driven, command-and-control basis to an environmental stewardship process heavily dependent on voluntary participation. This shift is viewed by many organizations as a benchmark for measuring the success of their environmental programs, and has led more than one group to develop standards that address what a “good” environmental management program ought to aspire to.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), a worldwide federation of roughly 90 standards-setting bodies, forms technical committees (TCs) to develop international standards designed to facilitate trade. They chartered TC207 in 1993 to develop the ISO 14000 series of environmental management standards. ISO 14000 gained final approval in late 1996. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was tasked in Executive Order 12856 of August 1993 with establishing a Federal Government Environmental Challenge Program, designed to recognize and reward outstanding environmental management performance in federal agencies and facilities. This is similar to the Environmental Leadership program proposed earlier in 1993 by EPA's Office of Enforcement. The program consists of three components which challenge federal agencies to:

• Agree to a Code of Environmental Management Principles (CEMP);

• Submit applications to EPA to recognize individual federal facilities as “Model Installations”;

• Encourage individual federal employees to demonstrate outstanding leadership in pollution prevention.

This article compares the ISO 1400 series standard with the CEMP and looks at how each answers three major questions facing federal agency environmental managers:

1. Will the standards help the agency maintain compliance with regulations?

2. What effects, if any, will implementing the standards have on operations?

3. Will the costs associated with implementation justify the benefits?