Mitigating the High Cost of ISO 14001 EMS Standard Certification: Lessons from Agribusiness Case Research

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) account for an estimated 90% of the world's economic activity, implying that environmental management strategies customized specifically for such organizations are important in a global environmental management initiative such as ISO 14001. The cost of third party ISO 14001 standard registration can be extremely high, and generally beyond the means of SMEs. Three dimensions to ISO 14001 EMS standard registration, which can substantially affect the cost associated with developing, implementing and obtaining ISO 14001 accreditation, were examined: i) whether the EMS implementation and registration process is direct or indirect; ii) how an organization can demonstrate compliance with ISO 14001 requirements; and iii)scale of the ISO 14001 certification process. In addition, case studies are used to highlight important ISO 14001 certification considerations, and assess how the organizations studied mitigated the high cost of ISO 14001 registration