ABSTRACT
International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 14001 is a new draft international standard for environmental management systems. ISO 14001 needs to be better understood by the public and industry, and especially by public authorities, so that it can be evaluated as it is marketed to non-participating industry, to governments and non-governmental organisations. The World Trade Organisation Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade has changed the context in which international standardisation and performance standard-setting activities are conducted. An industry magazine commented: Industry, which has dominated work on drafting the standard, faces the task of selling ISO 14001 to regulators, environmentalists and other stake-holders in environmental management. The confusion of 'standards' and 'standardisation', and the replacement of 'impacts' with 'aspects', and 'performance' with 'conformance', has significant consequences. It has effectively allowed the ISO 14001 system to be promoted as the most systematic and comprehensive means to global corporate sustainable development management and global environmental protection.
