ABSTRACT
The international Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) is currently supplementing ISO 14001, the standard on environmental management systems, with a number of guidance documents. This chapter analyses the ISO 14031 guidelines and provides a description of the guidelines. It examines their strengths and weaknesses and positions them in terms of a three-generational model of environmental performance evaluation (EPE). The ISO 14031 guidelines can be seen as reflecting the experience of first-generation and, to some degree, second-generation approaches. The first generation of EPE comprises companies whose environmental policies are mainly reactive. Second-generation EPE is influenced by total quality management. The chapter provides a 'diamond' model to position different types of 'third-generation' indicator. The central feature of ISO 14031 is a definition and detailed discussion of three basic types of indicator that can be used to support environmental management. They are environmental condition indicators, operational performance indicators, and management performance indicators.
