Iso 14000

At present worldwide the ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 standards are required, because they guarantee the quality of a product through the implementation of exhaustive controls, ensuring that all the processes that have intervened in its manufacture operate within the expected characteristics. Standardization is the starting point in the quality strategy, as well as for the subsequent certification of the company.

These standards were written in the spirit that the quality of a product is not born from efficient controls, but rather from a production process and supports that operate properly. In this way, it is a standard that applies to the company and not to its products. Its implementation assures the customer that the quality of the product he is buying will be maintained over time. To the extent that there are companies that have not been certified, a differentiation in the market is the norm. However, over time it will become commonplace and discrimination against non-certified companies will begin. This already occurs today in developed countries where the supply departments of large corporations demand the standard from all their suppliers.

History

The International Organization for Standardization, ISO, created in 1946, is the body in charge of promoting the development of international manufacturing, trade and communication standards for all industrial branches except electrical and electronic.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), based in Geneva, Switzerland, is made up of governmental and non-governmental delegations representing more than 100 countries, subdivided into a series of subcommittees in charge of developing the guidelines that will contribute to environmental improvement.

By 1992, a technical committee comprised of 43 active members and 15 observer members had been formed and the development of what we now know as ISO 14000 was underway. In October 1996, the launch of the first component of the ISO 14000 series of standards came to light, revolutionizing the business, legal and technical fields. These standards, called ISO 14000, will revolutionize the way both governments and industry will approach and deal with environmental issues. In turn, these standards will provide a common language for environmental management by establishing a framework for the certification of environmental management systems by third parties and by helping the industry meet the demands of consumers and government agencies for greater environmental responsibility.

Two aspects of ISO 14000 should be highlighted:

The certification of the Environmental Management System, through which the companies will receive the certificate, and The Environmental Seal, through which the products will be certified ("green seal").

ISO 14000 is based on the English standard BS7750, which was officially published by the British Standards Institution (BSI) prior to the UN World Meeting on the Environment (ECO 92).

One of the ECO 92 deliberations dealt with the setting up of a working group by the International Standardization Association (ISO) to study the development of Environmental Standards. The result of this work was the creation of Technical Committee 207-ISO / TC 207, in March 1993. The Technical Committee structured six subcommittees and a working group, in which pertinent issues were discussed with the responsible countries.

Subcommittee 01: Environmental Management System - United Kingdom - France · Subcommittee 06: Terms and Definitions- Norway · Working Groups: Environmental Aspects in standards and products- Germany

The final edition of BS-7750 was published in 1994 and serves as a guide for environmental impact assessment. The international standard ISO 14000 was approved in September 1996 and the adoption of the standard at the level of "national standard" in Europe took place in March 1997. The official version in Spanish of the international standard was published in May 1997.

Environmental management

The ISO 14000 Series Standards

ISO 14000 is the generic name of the set of environmental standards created by TC 207 of the ISO (International Organization for Standardization).

ISO 14000 is a series of international standards, which specifies the requirements to prepare and evaluate a management system that ensures that your company maintains environmental protection and prevention of pollution in balance with socio-economic needs.

Among the various published standards, ISO 14000, the Environmental Management Systems standard, is the best known and the only one that can be certified. In this way, the certification of supplement 14001 is evidence that the Companies have an Environmental Management System (EMS) implemented, being able to show through it their commitment to the environment.

In the last 20 years, ISO has published more than 350 standards on specifically environmental aspects, such as air, water and soil quality, as well as on vehicle smoke emissions. Its internationally recognized test methods have provided the basis for a serious assessment of the quality of the environment around the globe. Certainly, environmental concerns are not a new problem for ISO. What is new is the environmental management system that is being developed by ISO and which is leading to the ISO 14000 series of standards.

The standards of the ISO 14000 series allow any industrial or service organization, in any sector, to have control over the impact of its activities on the environment. The generic systems approach - successfully initiated by ISO 9000 for Quality Management - allows an accurate evaluation and comparison of the measures taken by organizations to address their responsibility in relation to the environment. As the criteria for the development of international standards is based on the international consensus of different stakeholders - industry, government and environmental specialists - standards will help prevent divergent national requirements from becoming technical barriers to trade,while it will allow those who put them into practice to demonstrate compliance with environmental goals.

What is ISO 14000?

ISO 14000 is an international voluntary environmental standard recognized by major trading and trading nations that regulate organizations such as GATT and the World Trade Organization. It is not a law in the sense that no one is required to be registered (it is voluntary); however, none do anyone have to do business with you, buy your products and services, or allow your products and services in your country if they have declared ISO 14000 registration a requirement for doing business with them or in your country. It is expected that so many foreign business partners will require registration by import manufacturers. This is a legal trade barrier recognized under the international treaty. Elements of the American Government have indicated intention to institute any preference for, or requirement that,Providers be registered. It is likely that registration will influence the position of the enforcement of environmental regulators, and will likely influence the insurance ratios and practices of the lender.

ISO 14000 is actually a series of standards that cover everything from environmental management systems (EMS) to auditor qualifications to as yet unwritten standards for such things as life cycle assessment.

The problem of concern is at this point for organizations seeking registration of the SME. This is governed by ISO 14001 and this is what registry it deals with.

ISO 14001 requires compliance with a number of elements of an SME. That is, the organization must show that it has a system of performance in place to produce the required results. ISO 14001 does not dictate how this is done, but requires a severe audit to determine that they are in fact done and are operating continuously. ISO 14001, for example, does not require that an organization comply with any environmental law, but does require that the organization know what regulations it is subject to, and have in place a verifiable system for achieving compliance and for heading out of non-compliances before they they happen. This responsibility must involve everyone in organizing the leadership from the top down to the line worker,wherever any employee has an influence on the company's environmental impacts.

This raises another aspect of ISO 14001 - environmental aspects. This major element of ISO 14001 requires that an organization know what impacts it is having on the environment. This knowledge should go beyond the textbook knowledge no more than typical pollution control. It must take into account the environmental aspects of the specific facility peculiar to its operations, processes, products, and its situation. You should consider its possible impact on the local community to the facility, and its impact on other stakeholders, such as citizen groups, or even the local wastewater treatment plant. The goal is to identify environmental 'issues' and continually work to minimize negative operating effects.This is the key to ISO 14001 - a management system that ensures the entire organization is involved in unceasing improvement. The system must have a structure that strength improves, and can show it.

To achieve this, the organization must set performance measures against that to measure improvement, and must involve each member of the organization who has a role in achieving the performance measure. Documents describing the system should indicate who these members are, get the worker down the line, and should indicate where support plans, instructions, and guidance documents are located showing that whoever "needs to know" can find the appropriate documents and performance measurements easily. Again, this does not involve strict attention to legal compliance. It is absolutely legal to generate 10 tons solid loss per week, but if the facility can produce as high a quality product as while producing 3 tons per week,you should strive for this reduction and in the process you will benefit like most other companies that have run an SME - your costs will stop falling greatly.

Who Needs Standards?

Most of the companies that produce items for sale in the developed world face the possibility today or in the near future that they will have to go through an independent certification to demonstrate their quality management systems conforming to ISO 9000.

Companies that increasingly require standards because the customer demands it include:

All those companies that sell a service, no matter which, in large sophisticated companies, in particular manufacturers or major service companies.

All those companies that sell a service that involves strict quality requirements.

All those companies that sell a service in a highly regulated area: hospitals, supermarkets, restaurants, airlines, etc.

The ISO 14000 standard is a set of environmental management documents that, once implemented, will affect all aspects of the management of an organization in its environmental responsibilities and will help organizations to systematically address environmental issues, in order to improve performance environmental and economic benefit opportunities. The standards are voluntary, have no legal obligation, and do not establish a set of quantitative targets for emission levels or specific methods of measuring those emissions. Rather, ISO 14000 focuses on the organization by providing a set of procedure-based standards and guidelines from which a company can build and maintain an environmental management system.

In this sense, any business activity that wishes to be sustainable in all its spheres of action must be aware that it must assume a preventive attitude in the future, which allows it to recognize the need to integrate the environmental variable into its business decision mechanisms..

The standard is made up of 5 elements, which are listed below with their respective identification number:

Environmental Management Systems (14001 Specifications and directives for their use - 14004 General directives on principles, systems and support technique.)

Environmental Audits (14010 General Principles - 14011 Audit Procedures, Environmental Management System Audits - 14012 Criteria for auditor certification)

Environmental performance evaluation (14031 Guidelines- 14032 Environmental Performance Evaluation Examples)

Analysis of the life cycle (14040 Principles and framework general- 14041 Defining the objective and scope and analysis of inventory - 14042 Evaluation of the impact of the life cycle- 14043 Interpretation of the life cycle- 14047 Examples of application of iso14042- 14048 Format documentation of analysis data)

Environmental labels (14020 General Principles - 14021 Type II - 14024 Type I - 14025 Type III)

Terms and Definitions (14050 Vocabulary)

All the standards in the ISO 14000 family were developed based on the following principles:

They must result in better environmental management;

they must be applicable to all nations;

they should promote a broad interest in the public and users of the standards;

They must be cost effective, non-prescriptive and flexible, to be able to cover different needs of organizations of any size anywhere in the world;

as part of their flexibility, they must serve the purposes of both internal and external verification;

they must be based on scientific knowledge;

and above all, they must be practical, useful and usable.

How to implement it?

The management system requirements are found in the ISO 14001 standard, which is applicable to all types and sizes of organizations.

The main steps to achieve certified environmental management are:

- Establish a policy, set objectives and goals, develop environmental programs.

- Detect environmental aspects and identify significant impacts.

- Document the processes and define the necessary records.

- Evaluate the system through internal audits.

- Implement corrective and preventive actions - improvement cycle.

- Certification audit through an accredited body

- OBTAINING THE ISO 14000 CERTIFICATE.

- Maintenance audits, ensuring the continuity of the correct operation of the environmental management system through internal and external audits.

Management model.

The model on which the standard is based is the following:

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Relationship with ISO 9.OOO standards

The ISO 14,000 series shares common principles of a management system with the ISO 9,000 series of quality system standards. However, it should be understood that the application of various elements of the management system may differ due to different objectives and different stakeholders. While the QMS address the needs of customers, the EMS are directed towards the needs of a broad spectrum of stakeholders and the needs that are developed in society for environmental protection.

While for the standards of the ISO 9000 series the customer is the one who buys the product, for the ISO 14000 they are the «interested parties», where these include from the public authorities, insurance, partners, shareholders, banks, and neighborhood associations or environmental protection. Regarding the product, for the 9000 series the product is quality, that is, an intentional product resulting from processes or activities, while in those of environmental management, it is an unintentional product: waste and pollutants.

One of the major differences lies in the fact that the performance requirements of the ISO 9000 series are related to ensuring that "the product conforms to the specified requirements", that is, the customer specifies the level of quality. In the case of an EMS, there is no direct customer, so the models for these systems introduce themselves the fundamental performance requirements - compliance with all legislative and regulatory requirements and a commitment to continuous improvement in accordance with the company policy based on an assessment of its environmental effects.

It is not yet possible to know exactly the cost of this type of certification, but comparing it with ISO 9000 certification, it can be concluded that ISO 14000 should be more expensive, first for reasons of breadth of the standard, since the research area for Determining possible environmental impacts exceeds the physical limits of the company (The environment in this context extends from within the organization to the global system ”) and in addition, many companies will have to invest in clean technologies, even to comply with decontamination plans.

Companies in Costa Rica

There are companies in Costa Rica in charge of providing the Iso 14000 implementation service, the advice, the necessary training, everything related to environmental management, I detail some characteristics of each company:

CEGESTI

With our services in Environmental Management, we promote Sustainable Industrial Development in the region and support the strengthening of the competitiveness of the productive sector, through the introduction of Environmental Management and its innovative support technologies.

CEGESTI is currently the headquarters of the National Center for Clean Production, which is part of the international network promoted by UNIDO / UNEP. This project is financed by the Swiss Government and executed in Costa Rica by the Chamber of Industries of Costa Rica, the Technological Institute of Costa Rica and CEGESTI.

We are also representatives for Costa Rica before the Regional Committee on the Environment for Central America (CORAMA).

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Welcome to the family of companies that have placed their trust in CEGESTI to advise them in achieving their ISO 14000 certification!

Aluminios Nacionales SA	Merrimac SA
Coopeldós RL	Panasonic from Costa Rica
Electroplast SA	Rio Sixaola Banana Tree
Etipres	Rechemistry
Firestone from Costa Rica	Resintech SA
MT Cargo	Terminals Santamaría
Mar y Tierra SA

INTECO

Since 1996, INTECO has developed an efficient, competent, professional and multisectoral Certification service, capable of satisfying the needs that industries have to demonstrate that their products and services are generated under a standardized system, which allows them to meet with customer expectations.

INTECO has established a strategic alliance with the Spanish Association for Standardization and Certification (AENOR), an entity recognized by the European Union as the Quality Certification body in Spain and also a member of the International Certification Network (IQNet).

The Certification service is provided through the INTECO - AENOR joint audit technique, which implies the issuance of a certificate by each organization and international recognition.

The Institute of Technical Standards of Costa Rica (INTECO) is a private non-profit association. The address of the Association is the province of San José, canton of Montes de Oca. All natural and legal persons can join INTECO; its associates are of three types: founders, regular and honorary. The supreme direction of the Association corresponds to the General Assembly. It is made up of the regular and founding associates represented by their holders or by any other associate authorized for this purpose.

INTECO is recognized as the entity in charge of developing technical standardization activities in Costa Rica, in accordance with the provisions of Decree 24662 of September 27, 1995, published in La Gaceta No. 191 of October 9 of the same year.

The association is directed by a Board of Directors made up of fifteen directors, coming from different sectors, including the public sector and consumers, in order to maintain an adequate balance of interests.

INTECO's main services:

Standardization: A broad program of projects for the elaboration of national standards, taking as reference international standards and developed by Technical Committees, made up of national experts.

Certification: The offer of audit services for evaluating systems, products and processes, in accordance with regulatory parameters.

Training: The design and implementation of programs, courses, seminars, workshops and forums, aimed at strengthening training in standardization, certification, quality management, industrial metrology, environment and others.

Information: The Information Center on Standards and Technical Regulations is the national medium for information and access to national and international standards.

Update date: 2002-01-30

Information Center on Standards and Technical Regulations

Notes: The scope of the certificate includes those processes that have been evaluated and certified based on the applicable standard. They do not necessarily encompass the entire company and rather can contemplate specific lines or processes of the total activity of the company.

The NACE classification is made up of various industrial and service sectors according to the division of activities of the European Economic Community, in its treaty of March 24, 1993 and its subsequent revisions. This is not a ranking of companies, but a location according to their business and / or service activity.

List of Consulting Companies affiliated with INTECO

ASESORES LEGISLATIVOS AMBIENTALES SA

DIMERCA SA

CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGY AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT FOUNDATION (CEGESTI)

SISTEMAS DE GESTION EMPRESARIAL SA

TÉCNICA DEL FUTURO SA

We also have companies that give advice:

FUNDES Costa Rica.

It offers entrepreneurs and human resources projects, plans and programs in functional areas, which, applied to the daily life of companies, provide a balance between theory and practice, between creativity and innovation. Taking on the challenges in an efficient, methodical and pragmatic manner are FUNDES's commitments to entrepreneurs.

FUNDES is an institution that promotes change for business training, committed to the development of small and medium-sized companies and educates the forgers of Costa Rican companies. It has highly qualified personnel, modern methodologies, support in decision-making, a long-term vision and 12 years of experience.

To see the graph select the option "Download work" from the top menu Mission: We promote the creation and sustainable development of small and medium-sized companies in Latin America. To see the graph select the option ¨Download work¨ from the top menu

Presence: FUNDES Costa Rica is part of a Network of private and business institutions in Latin America, which was born at the initiative of FUNDES Switzerland and leading entrepreneurs in different countries.

Currently the FUNDES Network is present in Costa Rica (1987), Guatemala (1988), Colombia (1989), Bolivia (1990), Chile (1992), Argentina (1993), Mexico (1993), Panama (1984), Venezuela (1996) and El Salvador (1999). Furthermore, FUNDES is associated with institutions based in Nicaragua (1997), Honduras (1996) and Peru (1998).

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Business environment: The Environment Program promotes the creation and development of small businesses by improving the environment in which they operate. We analyze the environmental conditions and promote the dialogue between the public and private sectors.

ISO 14000 Basic Terminology and Vocabulary

Environment: The environment of the site in which an organization operates, including air, water, soil, natural resources, flora, fauna, human beings and their interrelation.

Environmental aspect: Element of the activities, products or services of an organization that can interact with the environment.

Environmental impact: Any change in the environment, be it adverse or beneficial, totally or partially resulting from the activities, products or services of an organization.

Environmental management system: That part of the global management system that includes the organizational structure, planning activities, responsibilities, practices, procedures, processes and resources to develop, implement, carry out, review and maintain the environmental policy.

Environmental objective: Global environmental goal, quantified when feasible, arising from the environmental policy, that an organization intends to achieve.

Environmental goal: A detailed performance requirement, quantified where feasible, applicable to the organization or parts of it, arising from environmental objectives and that must be established and met to achieve those objectives.

Environmental performance: Measurable results of the environmental management system, related to the control of an organization over its environmental aspects, based on its environmental policy, objectives and goals.

Certification: Process by which a duly accredited entity confirms the ability of a company or product to meet the requirements of a standard.

ISO: International Organization for Standardization. (International Organization for Standardization)

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