ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses one company's approach to deploying and operating a business-wide, third-party-registered ISO 14001 environmental management system (EMS). The 'business-wide' as used means implementation of a common global approach to environmental management which is specified under a single EMS platform. Lucent Technologies Microelectronics Group is a business unit of Lucent Technologies, with over 12,000 employees worldwide. It grew out of Western Electric's semiconductor components business, which was the first in the world to manufacture transistors. Microelectronics has had a formal team called Environmental Action Team to address environmental issues that affect the business. A 'One Microelectronics' business approach allowed us to integrate into the existing ISO 9000 quality management system infrastructure and capitalise on lessons learned. The key to building a business-wide EMS was to define a strong, common approach to the planning elements of ISO 14001. With the implementation of Microelectronics' EMS, the company is better able to certify business-wide responses to environment-related questionnaires from customers.
