ABSTRACT
According to a recent National Research Council (NRC 1997, 43) committee report, environmental management systems (EMSs) adopted under international standards offer “the potential to change the culture of companies worldwide on environmental protection and commitment; harmonize environmental management frameworks, labels, and methods worldwide; move companies beyond compliance; and promote voluntary improvements.” These systems can provide firms with processes for identifying environmental impacts, setting performance goals, and generating action needed to improve environmental performance even beyond what is currently required under existing regulations. By acting systematically, firms can identify more precisely their current resource uses and seek alternative processes that use fewer or more benign resources, sometimes with resulting cost savings to the firms.
