The addition of environmental management into ISO certification is monumental in terms of the environment, the operation of most organizations, its customers, agencies, and most components of society. This work presents the information necessary for organizations to gain ISO 14000 certification. It provides realistic environmental management procedures that apply to most organizations world-wide. There have been many significant events in the field of environmental management, however, most pale in comparison to the addition of environmental management into the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification system. This mo numental event is expected to occur in 1996, with many organizations starting to prepare now. A great amount of effort is presently being spent by many committees around the world to establish this new environmental management set of standards that will be entitled the ISO 14000 series. New regulations that require environmental management systems are implemented almost daily in most countries. It has always been a challenge for the environmental manager to decide which systems to design and how to implement them in a cost-effective way. When you add the comprehensive environmental management systems that will now be required for ISO 14001 certification, the task for the environmental manager could easily become overwhelming. This book was prepared to offer practical guidance concerning selection, design and implementation of the environmental management systems necessary to achieve ISO 14001 certification which in turn will help meet the regulations. Once the standard is in place, it is expected that customers will require their product suppliers to be ISO 14001 certified. In addition, some service suppliers who have an impact on the environment will also probably be expected to obtain an ISO 14001 certification. Certification will imply to the customer that when the product or service was prepared, the environment was not significantly damaged in the process. Most customers already demand this type of certification now in terms of quality under the ISO 9000 certification system. In recent years Great Britain has developed many comprehensive standards for universally acceptable and certifiable quality standards. These standards are described in British Standard (BS) 5750 which later resulted in ISO 9000 standards. Many organizations in Europe, the United States and various other countries are now ISO 9000 certified or in the process of becoming certified. To complement this, BS 7750 was written to establish environmental management on the same basis. Significant portions of BS 7750 are presently being incorporated into the new environmental management standard ISO 14000 series by Technical Committee 207 of the ISO. Many countries are represented on TC 207 including the United States. The impact will be significant on the environment and organizational dynamics. The environment will benefit because most organizations will have to prepare and implement significantly more comprehensive environmental management systems than they presently have in order to obtain certification. This means considerable additional time and money to upgrade environmental management systems to a level that will allow ISO 14001 certification. Organizations must now include care of the environment in their everyday operations. Customers of certified organizations will be assured that the products or services they purchase have been produced in accordance with universally accepted standards of environmental management. Organization claims, which today can be misleading or erroneous, will, under the standards, be backed up by comprehensive and detailed environmental management systems which must withstand the scrutiny of intense audits. Organizational costs to achieve certification will vary widely. Those who have basically sound and complete policies and programs for quality and environmental control may need only minor change or adjustment for certification. Others who are in the start-up phase of operations or who have not yet established effective environmental policies or programs, will find the process expensive. This book discusses the scope of the proposed environmental management standards and offers boilerplate-type procedures to obtain certification under them. The first five chapters present background. Chapters 6-10 present the initial elements and com ponents needed. Chapters 11-21 contain information about the actual procedures and programs that an organization will have to prepare and implement in order to obtain ISO 14001 certification. The icon appearing in the margin throughout the book indicates when there is an easy to use boilerplate-type procedure available in Appendix F and on the floppy disk accompanying this book. The availability and cross-referencing of these boilerplate procedures and word processor templates can be summarized as follows: Word