All entries for Friday 20 April 2012

How important it is to comply to a standard such as ISO14001 to be on the path of 'excellence''

While gong to the literature on environmental management bu manufacturing companies, mostly I came across the frame work of standards such as ISO14001 that the company should comply to if they wants to make environment a part of their strategy, that is, if they want to be an eco-friendly enteprise. Now, the EFQM Excellence Model gives companies the framework for them to take steps so that they take environment to be an integral part of their strategies. Now, the framework and later the self assessment would or should take company to the path of an eco-friendly enteprise where they take into account the environmental considerations as very essential. So, why do the companies first want to comply with the ISO standards if the ultimate aim of them is to be environmentally aware. If the company goes for excellence, they would automatically acheive the standards set by ISO. So how important it is for the companies to get this external certificate if the same or arguably more they could achieve through going through the process of excellence, that is, continuous improvement and self-assessment. So, could this be case that where the companies who seek to achieve this certification, does it just to have a good impression on the customers and purely as a marketing strategy, where the environmental consideration may not be so much important for them and they fall back to the old ways or become less attentive to environmental needs when they received the certification...or is getting an external certification an important step towards excellence, and each company that seeks to be an excellent organization should go for it first or should seek to achieve it in its journey to excellence..!?

Manav Gupta : 20 Apr 2012 15:59 |  Tags: Kbam |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem