Environmental Management System

An environmental management system (EMS) provides an orderly method for making concern for the environment a part of an organization's plans and decisions. The growth and development of EMS as a best practice for businesses, nonprofit organizations, and governmental entities has substantially altered organizational behavior to include an emphasis on green factors and other sustainable principles, like extended product responsibility and ecoeffectiveness. ISO 14001 is an international standard for designing an EMS. However, an organization does not need to certify or register to ISO 14001 to use it for the purpose of establishing an EMS. Some organizations have their own EMS formats, while others use a compliance-focused EMS that has been developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Still, most organizations typically benchmark their ...