What is certification about?
ISO 14001 is about business management and behavioural change in a business. Product certification is about just the product. It ignores the behaviour and business practices of the company selling the product and the certification process is not as transparent as ISO 14001. Many of the product certifications are little more than a self assessment checklist.
In my opinion, ISO 14001 is the most credible environmental certification because it audits behaviour, it checks you are doing what you say do you, and looks for a cycle of continual improvement. You can make the odd mistake, but you must investigate the real cause for the problem and remove that cause. I personally believe that the fact a business has to be continually improving, but not necessarily perfect is a real strength of the system.
I am getting Enviro Action certified to ISO 14001. Enviro Action has had ISO 9001 certification for customer satisfaction, for four years now and this year we are adding the ISO 14001 fully integrated with 9001. We had our environmental pre-audit jointly with the quality audit on Monday. It was interesting being in the same shoes my clients are in when they go for audit.
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