INTRODUCTION

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has published ISO 14000 series of standards with a view to provide organizations worldover with a structure for managing environmental impacts of their activities, products and services and to have a uniform international Environmental Management Systems (EMS)for use as environmental management tool, for achieving sustainable development, ISO 14000 is an evolving series of generic standards which include a broad range of environmental disciplines. ISO 14000 series of standards addresses six distinct but related subjects like Environmental Management Systems (EMS), Environmental Auditing (EA), Environmental Performance Evaluation (EPE), Environmental Labelling (EL), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Environmental Aspects in Product Standards (EAPS). Together, these standards provide the necessary guidance for implementing an effective environmental management systems.

Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the National Standards Body of India has been providing service to the Indian industry for more than five decades by way of formulation of national standards and operation of product certification scheme.

BIS launched Environmental Management Systems (EMS) Certification as per IS/ISO 14001 Standard in the wake of increasing public awareness about the environment which has become an important factor in the decision making process of the organizations. These standards are adoption of and identical to the internationally accepted ISO 14001 Standard on Environmental Management Systems.

This Scheme envisages grant of Environmental Management Systems Certification Licence to organizations according to IS/ISO 14001, which is identical with ISO 14001.