ISO Introduction After the success of the ISO9000 series of quality standards, the International Standards Organization published a comprehensive set of standards for environmental management.

The new series of ISO14000 standards are designed to cover:  environmental management systems  environmental auditing  environmental performance evaluation  environmental labeling  life-cycle assessment  environmental aspects in product standards

Why have these standards ?  A set of international standards brings a world-wide focus to the environment, encouraging a cleaner, safer, healthier world for us all.  The existence of the standards allows organizations to focus environmental efforts against an internationally accepted criteria

Who do the standards apply to ?  The standards apply to all types and sizes of organizations and are designed to encompass diverse geographical, cultural and social conditions  The standard does not establish absolute requirements for environmental performance  Except for committing to continual improvement and compliance with applicable legislation and regulations

What do the standards apply to ?  No limit to the coverage of the environmental management system in that it can include the organization's  products, services, activities, operations, facilities, transportation, etc.  for environmental impact resulting from – current practices, –past practices and –future practices

What does the ISO Series cover ?

Official Sources of the Standards  THE STANDARDS The standards themselves are now most commonly procured in the form of downloads, usually in PDF format. The major two standards, ISO and ISO 14004, along with the audit standard ISO 19011, can be obtained via the ISO Download Page at BSI's Standards Direct outlet ISO Download PageISO Download Page  MANUAL, PROCEDURES, TEMPLATES There are many commercial offerings of templates and tools  One of the most straight forward and widely used of these is the ISO and ISO Toolkit at ISO and ISO ToolkitISO and ISO Toolkit 

The objectives were to:   Implement an EMS based on ISO to a core group of dairy farmers and measure the effectiveness of the EMS   Undertake a supply chain EMS or life cycle analysis (LCA) study highlighting environmental impacts, wastes and inefficiencies along the Bega Cheese supply chain, from cradle to grave   Establish the Bega Cooperative Factory EMS, currently in progress, and investigate the feasibility of accrediting their farms and factory EMS to ISO standard or an alternative accreditation scheme.

Life cycle analysis (LCA)   An LCA was undertaken for a block of Bega cheese in order to identify environmental inefficiencies from the paddock to the plate.   The LCA showed that increasing productivity without necessarily increasing inputs makes a signifi cant and positive environmental contribution per unit of product.   For example implementing water efficiency measures can result in more grass per megalitre of water used, and ultimately more milk.

BEMS   A modifi ed EMS, now known as BEMS, was developed based on a 4 step process:   hazard analysis   corrective action   monitor   review.

Bega Cheese   Bega Cheese is developing an ISO EMS process at factory level to enhance current management systems.   The farm BEMS process will be integrated into the factory ISO environmental programme to create a whole-of-chain environmental system.