ISO 14001, ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, AND
DEVELOPMENT OF SUSTAINABILITY CONCEPTS
IN THE MINING INDUSTRY
16 March 2002
Glenn Mills
Principal Environmental Consultant, MWH Energy & Infrastructure, Inc., Mining Group, USA
Dr. Gurdeep Singh
Professor and Head, Centre of Mining Environment, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad-826004
Introduction
Over the past decade and a half, governmental organisations and industries around the world have discovered that improved environmental management practices not only enhance overall competitiveness and organisational efficiency, but also tend to reduce the operational costs and liabilities too often associated with poor environmental performance - and too often reflected in the cost of products and services as well as the greater societal costs associated with remediation and cleanup. Regulatory agencies in many countries are also realising that such changes in management emphasis can facilitate the achievement of specific environmental improvements, reduce regulatory burdens and compliance monitoring costs, and contribute to sustainable economic growth. Recent studies, most notably by the Dow Jones Sustainability Group Index, show that companies focusing on a "triple bottom line" of economic, environmental, and social sustainability consistently outperform other companies in the stock market. As we will see, this trend has not been lost on the international mining industry, which often competes on slim operating margins and must manage its costs and the potential impacts of a negative public image very carefully.
In conjunction with increasing public and governmental expectations for improved environmental performance, as well as rising concerns over the management of environmental impacts and the costs of cleanup or restoration, this trend has resulted in the development of consistent, internationally recognised environmental management system (EMS) standards that provide a logical framework for continually improving environmental and economic performance. ISO 14001 , the European Union's Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) , and derivative standards are increasingly being used as benchmarks to guide the development and implementation of management practices that over time, because they are founded on principles of continual improvement, promise to be both environmentally and economically sustainable.
Perhaps because it is engaged in a fundamentally extractive activity, and is consistently (and too often negatively) in the public eye, the international mining industry has been a consistent and vocal proponent of ISO 14001 as a benchmark for how their environmental practices might best be focused and managed. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to provide a brief background on ISO 14001 relative to the mining industry, to explore the potential interests that a mining concern may have in establishing an ISO 14001-based EMS, and to provide several case studies from the authors' experience that demonstrate the variety of reasons that international mining firms have for implementing ISO 14001 in their operations.
What is ISO 14001?
ISO 14001 is the primary standard in series of voluntary, international EMS guidelines that are likely to significantly influence the management practices of industrial and governmental organisations of all types in the years to come. Over 100 countries were involved in the standards development effort, which was led by the Geneva, Switzerland-based International Organisation for Standardisation. The ISO 14000 series is made up of product standards (which include guidelines for environmental labelling, life-cycle analysis, and for including environmental provisions in other standards) and several system standards. The latter category contains guidelines for EMS implementation, EMS auditing, environmental performance evaluation, and the primary EMS standard, ISO 14001. ISO 14001 is the only truly "mandatory" document in the entire series, as it defines minimum requirements (not guidelines) for the establishment of an EMS. In many respects, it resembles the ISO 9001 quality management standards familiar to many organisations. ISO 14001 is also used as the reference standard in third-party certification schemes similar to those that now associated with ISO 9001.
The EMS defined by ISO 14001 is designed to apply broadly to any organisation that has environmental issues to manage and that is willing to commit to a policy of regulatory compliance, pollution prevention, and continuous improvement. It contains five major elements:
- the development of a documented environmental policy that encompasses the aforesaid commitments;
- the management planning necessary to implement such a policy, which includes
- a precise reckoning of the regulatory requirements applicable to an organisation's operational processes, as well as any other requirements related to environmental performance that the organisation chooses to subscribe to;
- a broad understanding of the organisation's environmental aspects and the significance of their associated impacts; and
- the setting and achievement of specific environmental objectives and targets, with due consideration of the interests of stakeholders and the underlying commitment to continual improvement.
- implementation and operation in compliance with planned requirements and conditions, through the use of operational procedures and processes that, at a minimum, address the organisation's significant environmental aspects;
- maintenance of appropriate records and measuring and checking environmental performance to ensure that policy and performance objectives are being met, that compliance is being maintained, that actions are performed as planned, and that appropriate corrective action is being initiated; and
- periodic management review to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the management system, particularly in relation to the organisation's continual improvement, compliance, and pollution prevention commitments.
Perhaps the most powerful feature of an ISO 14001 EMS is that it provides a context in which improvements in environmental performance are systematically linked to competitiveness and profitability - regardless of the type or complexity of an organisation's products and processes. The rate of improvement is not prescribed; the overall complexity or efficiency of the EMS is entirely up to the subscribing organisation to define, within the basic parameters of the standard, and will ultimately be driven by market factors in balance with the organisation's other business needs.
Regulatory benefits are also very likely in some circumstances; the regulatory organisations of many countries played a key role in the development of the draft ISO 14001 standard , and many of its key features are reflected in a number of important voluntary initiatives. In some countries, such as China, ISO 14001 has been adopted as state policy and, even though intended as a voluntary standard, is likely to end up having de facto regulatory status. In the USA and the member nations of the European Union, ISO 14001 is increasingly viewed as a tool to help reduce regulatory compliance monitoring costs through voluntary action, thereby freeing regulatory budgets for application to more pressing environmental issues. In developing nations, ISO 14001 is often viewed as a means of ensuring an adequate level of environmental performance on the part of multinational interests seeking to make investments, without having to make additional large public investments in a regulatory monitoring and enforcement infrastructure.
1 ISO 14001:1996: Environmental management systems - Specification with guidance for use; International Organisation for Standardisation, Geneva, Switzerland, 1996.
2 EEC, 1993; "Council Regulation (EEC) No 1836/93 of 29 June 1993 allowing voluntary participation by companies in the industrial sector in a Community eco-management and audit scheme", in Official Journal of the European Communities, No. L 168; Brussels, Belgium.
3ISO 9001:2000, Quality Management Systems - Requirements; International Organisation for Standardisation, Geneva, Switzerland, 2000.
4 It may be noted that the concept of a policy-level commitment regulatory compliance, pollution prevention, and continuous improvement was made part of the standard largely due to the efforts and influence of the US Environmental Protection Agency.