Talk:ISO 14000

brief history is wrong. In full.
begin quote Brief history of environmental management systems[edit]

The concept of an environmental management system evolved in the early nineties and its origin can be traced back to 1972, when the United Nations organized a Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was launched (Corbett & Kirsch, 2001). These early initiatives led to the establishment of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) and the adoption of the Montreal Protocol and Basel Convention.

In 1992, the first Earth Summit was held in Rio-de-Janeiro, and served to generate a global commitment to the environment. In the same year, BSI Group published the world's first environmental management systems standard, BS 7750.[1] This supplied the template for the development of the ISO 14000 series in 1996, by the International Organization for Standardization, which has representation from committees all over the world (ISO) (Clements 1996, Brorson & Larsson, 1999). As of 2010, ISO 14001 is now used by at least 223 149 organizations in 159 countries and economies.[2] end quote

All wrong. dating this stuff in both paras from the early nineties, when the chemical industries' RCMS started in 1985, means that the brief history is plain wrong http://www.icca-chem.org/en/Home/Responsible-care/ from 1985

If someone is capable of writing a brief history of EMSs, by all means do so, but in the meantime let's not have WP so awfully, awfully wrong.

Deletion re-made Gravuritas (talk) 16:42, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Brief history is not wrong. In full.
Nothing you have said supports the view that the Brief History is wrong. At all. It may be that additional information can usefully be added. The first para does not 'date this stuff' 'from the early nineties'. It says: "its origin can be traced back to 1972, when the United Nations organized a Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was launched ..."

By all means insert some reference to Responsible Care, if that is indeed relevant to the evolution of ISO 14001 - but the page you cite says the Responsible Care Global Charter was launched in 2006 - a decade after ISO 14001 was first published. So this particular reference in itself doesn't seem to me to suggest that Responsible Care in any sense paved the way for ISO 14001. Alkazzi (talk) 10:36, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * read it a bit slower. The page I reference says that RCMS dates from 1986, so don't refer to 2006.  If you knew ISO14001 and RCMS you would understand the common ground.  If you knew RCMS you would not have made such an elementary mistake as to think that 2006 was the start of it.  The first para says "The concept of an environmental management system evolved in the early nineties" which is at least a decade too late.  So original para wrong, your 'refutation' hopeless.  Linking the earth summit to BS7750 in the same year, if you had any idea how long a standard takes to gestate, is also a hopelessly naïve comment by the original writer.
 * Gravuritas (talk) 20:53, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * By all means edit the entry if you believe it to be inaccurate. Don't just delete everything! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alkazzi (talk • contribs) 10:00, 25 February 2014 (UTC)


 * If you delete the incorrect stuff, there's nothing left. refer to my original reason for deleting it.
 * Gravuritas (talk) 17:20, 25 February 2014 (UTC)


 * My previous comment stands - if you are such a font of knowledge, edit the entry. If you aren't prepared to or can't - leave it alone. Don't simply delete whole sections of text without offering an adequately referenced substitution. Alkazzi (talk) 15:51, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * So you can't acknowledge your 20-year error on RCMS. You want to invent a new WP standard that deletions are only allowed when they are substituted by a re-write.  If you want to propose it, do so, and if you want to live by it, do so, but don't expect anyone to take notice of such twaddle.  Even the EPA in the UK was in 1990.  So your previous comment only "stands" in a puddle of self-inflicted embarrassment.
 * What I know about the origin of EMS's is that they grew, at least to some extent, out of RCMS and that RCMS grew in turn to some extent out of various crimes and misdemeanours by, amongst others, the chemical industry. That knowledge is too vague to stick in WP, but it is specific enough to recognize garbage in this article.
 * Gravuritas (talk) 18:27, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Dear Gravuritas, I have no wish to invent a new WP standard. I just think that deleting the entire section as 'garbage' is to lose valid information. Your point, I think, is that it doesn't contain the whole story, or that it distorts the story and that RCMS should be included. While I can't find any evidence that EMS's to some extent grew out of RCMS - see for instance: http://www.eng.mcmaster.ca/civil/facultypages/krantz11.pdf - can we not include some reference - as I have attempted to do - in the hope that another better placed Wikipedian can supplement the edit? Alkazzi (talk) 10:07, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Fine- so here is the entire paragraph, which I'm going through line by line to see what stands. Original is not indented, my comments are

The concept of an environmental management system evolved in the early nineties
 * No it didn't- RCMS included environmental management and started in 1986, for instance

and its origin can be traced back to 1972, when the United Nations organized a Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was launched (Corbett & Kirsch, 2001).
 * from UNEP "in the 1960s and 1970s social issues were still largely disconnected from environmental policies and programmes"
 * http://www.unep.org/gender/data/AboutUs/HistoricalBackground/tabid/54774/Default.aspx first para
 * so we have environmental policies and programmes existing in the 1960s. UNEP is very insistent on linkages between gender issues and the environment.  This does not feature in ISO14000, so tracing the roots of EMSs to UNEP seems peculiar.

These early initiatives led to the establishment of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) and the adoption of the Montreal Protocol and Basel Convention.
 * Montreal protocol 1987?  Some countries had taken action many years earlier.  So why are we interested in what was done internationally years later?  this is garbage, again.

Concurrently, the chemical industry’s awareness of its environmental impacts led to the establishment of the Responsible Care initiative in 1985. This also influenced the development of ISO 14001[clarification needed].
 * Concurrently? RCMS was a wide reaching health/safety/environmental SYSTEM, not a single-issue initiative or a bunch of generalized arm-waving and well-wishing.  It predates EMS and ISO 14000 by a good way, and there are similarities.  However, there may have been earlier proto-environmental systems o which  I am unaware, so maybe both RCMS and EMSs are both indebted to a predecessor.  I don't know, and you only know what I pointed you at, so let's both admit ignorance.

In 1992, the first Earth Summit was held in Rio-de-Janeiro, and served to generate a global commitment to the environment.
 * Garbage again. Environmental initiatives by big companies, and the environmental movement, were well-established before this.  Either this statement is irrelevant, and shouldn't be in this article, or it represents a serious claim that Rio resulted in ISO14000.  Which is garbage.

In the same year, BSI Group published the world's first environmental management systems standard, BS 7750.[1] This supplied the template for the development of the ISO 14000 series in 1996, by the International Organization for Standardization, which has representation from committees all over the world (ISO) (Clements 1996, Brorson & Larsson, 1999). As of 2010, ISO 14001 is now used by at least 223 149 organizations in 159 countries and economies.[2


 * We've finally got a fragment that is both true and relevant to the article. OK, we'll keep this.
 * Gravuritas (talk) 19:01, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Continual improvement process
The three things listed under this section do not include the basic idea of reducing environmental impacts, which should be first on the list of the objectives of continual improvement- e.g.

"EMS Under ISO 14001 An EMS encourages a company to continuously improve its environmental performance"

As the section stands, it's hard to modify as the author/source has clearly got it wrong- the three things mentioned are (possibly) additional objectives compared with ISO9000, because it's more usual for a quality system to cover the whole business. Any objections to deleting it, or does anyone want to edit it to better match the facts? Gravuritas (talk) 11:33, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

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External links modified
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