ISO 14001 - What's the take-up?

As a maiden blogger on Event Crowd, it occurs to me that this might be the ideal forum for a little anecdotal research on ISO 14001. For those who haven't yet come across it, this is the accreditation that specifies requirements for an organisation's environmental management system, and is receiving similar attention to BS8901 - the newish standard developed specifically for the events industry.

My interest is sparked by the fact that I have a PR client that is currently going through the accreditation process and I'm wondering to what extent this has been taken up by the industry at large? I should hasten to add that the company concerned is undertaking this as part of its very responsible CSR programme rather than with any hard-nosed commercial motives; so my curiosity is a personal one. I'd just like to know who has already gained the accreditation, who's thinking about it, who sees it as just another piece of bureaucracy designed to keep them away from their day job, and how it is viewed against or in tandem with BS8901. In other words, to what extent the accreditation is valued and has become currency amongst event organisers and their suppliers.

And that of course leads on to the buyer perspective. Is this seen as a valuable USP, and by extension, how many purchasers are beginning to request it within their tender and pitch processes. I heard a rumour recently that the Government's marketing services procurement body, the COI, are thinking of making this an essential supplier qualification from next year on. I can't substantiate this rumour, it could well be idle speculation or another case of Chinese Whispers, so don't quote me - you didn't hear it here first!

Any information from Event Crowd members - recipes, gardening tips, the latest Designer factory outlets - but most particularly, insights into ISO 14001, would be extremely welcome.

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Comment by Ray Myles on February 23, 2009 at 16:48: Sarah

CEVA have had ISO 14001 for several years along with 18001 and 9001 which all merge into our management system. As with any certification you need to examine your own business needs and those of your clients to evaluate the time and effort to keep the auditor happy every six months. You will get different answers from different contractors. Was it worth it for CEVA - Yes and we are proud to have achieved certification and we can only trust it serves us well as its not easy to quantify.

Use it as a tool to manage the energy consumed and the wate your business produces and you will find real benifits, but you may also wish to consider the more event targeted BS890, which is focused on sustainability - the current buzz word. The choice is yours but in my humble opinion 14001 is a more robust management tool and is an International standard For the record we have just completed a series of training workshops with Positive Impact on BS8901and plan to achieve certification in May this year.

Let me know if you want more detail on the workshops.

Comment by Sarah Webster on February 23, 2009 at 17:21: Ray

This is really valuable stuff - thanks so much, particularly for juxtaposing ISO 14001 against BS8901. I'm quite familiar with 8901 so it's good to be able to compare and contrast.

Comment by Teresa on March 12, 2009 at 14:38: My company, Ubiqus, are working to improve our environmental impact. We're looking at three areas -- our own internal practice; our supply chain; and the environmental impact of the translation, interpretation and transcription services we provide. We are considering what sort of qualification could be helpful. The motivation is two-fold, both because our clients are increasingly asking what we're doing on the environmental front, and because of a genuine desire by a lot of our staff to be part of improving what we do. As we have looked at ISO 14001, our concern has been that it provides plenty of structure for managing an environmental programme -- but it doesn't help so much with setting realistic goals and benchmarks. We're looking for something that has elements of both.

Comment by Ray Myles on March 17, 2009 at 10:11: Hi Teresa

Trying to find a body that offers everything you want from certification is like moving house - you never find all the elements you want!! I would still favour ISO primarily as with all of this family they are Internationally recognised. You are right that 14001 provides a firm structure, but your goals, or KPI's need to be set by you.

You can give careful consideration to the areas you have highlighted and derive your KPI's from these. This will form your annual objectives and you can measure your performance monthly etc.

Obviously you have to include the required elements of the standard but after that you can expand it as much as your business demands.

Good luck anyway and if I can help just shout. :-)

Comment by John Sanders on March 24, 2009 at 17:25: Sarah

This is an interesting one....

In our part of the market I can only think of two companies off the top my head that have gone through the iso 14001 accreditation process.

My question is whether an environmental standard is where the future is rather than something that incorporates wider issues such ethical trading, sourcing of local materials, employment practices etc.

Comment by Sarah Webster on March 24, 2009 at 17:40: Yes - I agree that for the events space, there are a lot of sustainability and CSR issues that constitute the Bigger Picture, John. In their defence, the company I am thinking about at the moment, provides a different set of services with fewer 'consumables'. They have gone for 14001 as a generic standard but it still leaves me wondering if they should be looking for a BS8901 equivalient for their own sector.

Comment by Tim Sunderland on May 18, 2009 at 8:26: Hi Sarah - I have worked on both ISO 14001 and BS 8901. As you may know, BS 8901 is being updated based upon experience from those who have been working with it. It is expected that this latest version will move to become an international standard in a couple of years. In terms of which is more appropriate for the industry then I think there are 2 issues to consider. Firstly, BS 8901 has been developed specifically for the events industy (whereas ISO 14001 applies to all industry) and hence may become the de facto standard for the industry. Secondly, you need to look at what your customers are interested in and whether BS 8901 or ISO 14001 is part of their requirement. The London 2012 Olympics have stated that they expect their suppliers and licencees to be working to BS 8901.

I have assisted a number of organisations in implementing BS 8901 and have certified them to the standard. The feedback is generally very positive and BS 8901 is basically a business management system addressing not only environmental and social issues but also how an organisation remains competitive in the market place - if you are not financially viable then you are not sustainable. Hence, BS 8901 provides a useful structure to help smaller and medium sized organisations run their business. BS 8901 unlike ISO 14001 is also more strategic requiring organisations to have a clear mission and sense of purpose and to achieve stakeholder alignment - all of which are very positive actions designed to imporve the success of your business. When you look behind the jargon of BS 8901 it actually makes good business sense.

The workshops that we run on BS 8901 and the certification that we provide are all geared towards making organisations more successful at the same time as being environmentally and socially responsible

Comment by Sarah Webster on May 19, 2009 at 9:54: Hi Tim

This is extremely valuable feedback. Thanks so much for such a comprehensive comment. Lots to take on board.

Comment by Sam Wilson on May 24, 2009 at 23:33: Hi Sarah

I agree that 14001 is currently a more robust standard and it's benefits are well established world-wide. But I also agree with Tim that there is a strong rationale behind the wider scope of 8901 to include social impacts and specific event-relevant activities. One of the main misunderstandings (and in my opinion this is key to BS8901's validity) is that people generally do not understand the difference between accreditation and certification.

Certification Bodies carry out the assessments and these Certification Bodies need to be accredited by UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service - the sole National Accreditation Body recognised by Government to accredit Certification Bodies to assess against International and British standards). Currently, BS8901 is not covered by UKAS (and this is causing a great deal of confusion and scepticism in the industry).

In my opinion, only certification bodies that are accredited by UKAS to carry out assessments to ISO14001 will be considered competent to assess and certificate to BS8901. Certification bodies are not allowed to assist companies to comply (as EcoEvents does) but only check compliance once a mangement system has been put in place and the company is ready for independent assessment and certification. This is a great deal of misunderstanding re this in the industry - and a lot of my work currently involves demystifying this point of difference.

To rectify this problem, we are working closely with a global certification body to enable UKAS accredited certification against a matrix of of ISO14001 (which has been in place for 12 years) and BS8901 as well as providing independent certification against an organisation's or event's carbon emissions. I think this is vital work that needs to be done for BS8901 to be considered a viable, robust and credit-worthy standard to comply against.

I hope that's not info overload!! And helps somewhat.

Sam

Comment by Sarah Webster on May 26, 2009 at 10:43: Sam - this is really interesting stuff, I certainly was one of the ignorant on the difference between accreditation and certification. Really valuable intelligence.

Thanks so much.

Sarah

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