ABSTRACT
As standards writers prepare to revise ISO 14001, they undoubtedly will feel intense pressure from a variety of sources to beef up the public reporting requirements in the three-year-old standard. In the fall of 1998, the author attended a SubTAG 1 meeting in Washington, D.C., in which regulators and environmental activists called for more transparency in the standard. If ISO 14001 was to have any credibility, they argued, it needed to be more transparent, requiring a public accounting by companies that decide to certify the standard — especially if those same companies chose to publicize the certification. But industry representatives pointed to the voluntary nature of the standard, saying that ISO 14001 companies are choosing to go above and beyond compliance, so they shouldn’t have to reveal confidential information about voluntary, proactive initiatives. After all, they are trying to do more than the law requires of them, they countered. To which ENGOs respond: If industry is not doing anything wrong, why won’t it document and report its ISO 14001 activities?
