انتشار ISO 14001 پس از موفقیت مدل ایزو 9001

The interest shown by organizations and other entities linked by the implementation of environmental management systems (EMS), especially the family of ISO 14000 standards and the EMAS regulation in Europe, has grown spectacularly all over the world in recent years, even though a certain saturation has been detected in some countries. That leads us to ask, is EMS implementation already saturated? This article will analyze the case of the successful ISO 14000 standard, based on previous experience with the most widely used standardised management systems in the entire world: quality management systems (QMS). Will EMS follow in the footsteps of QMS? The analysis carried out, using a logistic curve that fits quite well to explain the nature of this growth, distinguishes three general patterns to explain the diffusion of these norms, namely, expansionistic, mature and retrocessive.

During the past few years there has been a significant growth in the standards issued by agencies specialized in standardization in the economic field. This growth has largely been due to the marked process of economic globalization and integration that western economies have experienced over the last two decades [1]. Standardization could be generically defined as that activity aimed at putting order into repetitive applications that arise in the field of industry, technology, science and the economy [2]. In its beginnings, at the start of the 20th century, standardization arose to limit the anti-economic diversity of components, parts and supplies so as to favour their interchangeability, facilitating serial production and the repair and maintenance of products and services. In a global economy without standardization and the fruits of it – regulations, standards and technical specifications – exchanges would be exceeding difficult. Consequently, standardization fosters international trade thanks to the elimination of obstacles due to different national practices. Notwithstanding, these standards often form non-tariff barriers to international business relations as they are not truly global. As several authors have pointed out [3] and [4], while there are fewer and fewer tariff barriers, non-tariff barriers – technical standards and regulations which affect the requirements of products, services and, indirectly, production processes – take on greater importance. At present there is a great number of national and international standards attempting to order and systematize – among other things – the implementation of business management systems in terms of very different functions and operating activities, such as quality improvement (ISO 9000, TS 16949, QS 9000, EAQF, VDA, etc.), occupational hazard prevention (OHSAS 18001), corporate social responsibility (SA 8000, AA 1000 and the ISO 26000 draft standards), R&D activities (the Spanish UNE 166000 EX experimental standard), human resources management (Investors in People), and of course the case that interests us: environmental impact (the ISO 14000 family of standards and EMAS). All of these standards included in the set of Management System Standards (MSS) are dealt with. However, it must be made clear that these MSS are not based on standards which refer to the attainment of a specific objective or result – that is to say, they are not result or performance standards, but rather standards which establish the need to systematize and formalize a whole series of business procedures related to the different fields of business management in a series of procedures [5]. From a global perspective, the success of disseminating all these management standards seems to be closely linked to the dynamics of the globalization process of western economies and the main players in them – multinationals: if standardization originally came about in order to limit the anti-economic diversity of components, parts and supplies in an economic environment in which outsourcing and relocation of business activity prove to be strategic elements, it must nowadays promote a certain homogeneity in business management systems in order to favour such processes. Specialists in this field point out that in the absence of a regulating power of a global and public nature, the task of designing, implementing and enforcing standards, in areas in which such measures have traditionally been thought of as part of the regulation of public powers, is increasingly taken on by different regional or global institutions of a non-governmental nature [6], [7] and [8]. All these standards employ very similar methodologies for their creation, structuring, implementation and third-party verification processes. Two series of standards issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) stand out among them, due to their successful dissemination: the ISO 9000 series, related to the implementation of quality systems, and the ISO 14000 series, related to the implementation of environmental management systems, and at the same time the analytical objective of this article. The ISO 9000 phenomenon has aroused great interest and has been extensively studied in academia. While the literature is not as extensive as that analyzing ISO 14000 implementation, research on the ISO 9000 can be found [9], [10], [11] and [12]. Although the results of these studies are very diverse, it could generally be stated that external factors, especially the coercive pressure of customers, are very important motivators in the implementation of the standards referred to. Regarding the methods used in these studies, they are generally based on opinions obtained from surveys circulated among company environmental and quality managers, and thus reflect an inherent bias. Recently, research focusing on the endogenous process of ISO 9000 dissemination has been carried out internationally, and the work of Saraiva and Duarte [13] and Franceschini et al. [14] stand out. Now, in the academic literature known to us, only Professors Corbett and Kirsch [15], in an extension of the research carried out by Vastag [16] and Marimon et al. [17], have analyzed the joint dissemination of ISO 14000 and ISO 9000. These studies are interesting not only due to their descriptive and predictive capacity regarding the dissemination process of these international standards per se, as highlighted by the authors, but also because they offer certain empirical evidence with regard to whether an analogy can be drawn between the dissemination process of these standards and the dissemination of innovations in general. There is a crucial difference between the studies we have read and the present one. Those studies were done at a time when the number of certificates was growing year by year, with both standards in clear expansion, a situation in many countries that is very different from the present one. In fact, and as the ISO itself includes in its latest annual report analyzing the international dissemination of both standards, recent years have seen a certain drop in the number of certificates in several of the countries which had historically been leaders in this area (see Ref. [18]). That is why we wonder if this phenomenon, primarily found in QMS, will also occur in EMS. The purpose of this article, with its clearly exploratory and pilot content, is to analyze in detail the evolution of the ISO 14000 certificates on an international level, in order to predict their future diffusion. To that end, and since it is the only standard to be studied until now and will quite possibly become a clear reference in the field of standardization, the diffusion process of the successful ISO 9000 will be used. It is logical to think that the “steps” followed by this management standard will be fairly similar to those that will be taken by the ISO 14000 standard in the coming years. In this way it may be possible to determine whether homogenous guidelines exist in the phases of the dissemination process of both certificates – including the decline phase which could be defined by the concept of decertification. In addition, it will analyze whether it is possible to assess the scope of these decline phases, which prove to be of interest to the different agents involved in the implementation of the aforementioned standards. Proposals that have emerged from the exploratory and projective work carried out and that could be tested in future work are also specified in the final part of this article.

This article is not the first in which similar behaviours are detected between the implementation of an EMS according to the ISO 14000 standard and that of a QMS according to the ISO 9000. Thus, some authors [30] and [31] had already discovered that the reasons companies had in getting certified as well as the benefits they obtained with certification coincided for both standards. However, up to now very little analysis has been done to determine whether their dissemination followed the same parameters or not. In particular, some research work proposing dissemination models has been carried out [14] and [17], but at a time when both standards were in a process of expansion. On the other hand, no research has been found regarding new effects such as the decrease in the number of certifications which has been detected in recent years. Firstly, it must be taken into account that this decertification concerns, above all, the ISO itself. In this sense, the latest report published by this organization [18] regarding the number of certificates includes a brief description of the possible causes of such decertification, as well as the results of a survey about it. In the aforementioned study, it is pointed out that one of the main reasons for decertification is “Organization failed re-certification audit,” although it must be taken into account that the main reason cited by companies (with a 54.2% rate of response) is “Other reasons,” so major conclusions cannot be drawn from this brief study. In any case, worldwide decertification is evident, more so if we take into account the fact that many countries ranked as worldwide economic leaders, such as the United Kingdom or Australia, and up to a certain point Germany, are clearly immersed in this process of decertification. Undoubtedly, the total number of certificates throughout the world is maintained thanks to the impact of the more incipient countries with low saturation levels, particularly China, on forecast logistic models. On discovering the first countries evidencing certain decertification in the number of ISO 14000 certificates, as well as with ISO 9000 certificates, this article has sought to analyze their pattern. A first approach is found by detecting that this decertification begins once the number of certificates has reached 95% of the degree of saturation shown by the logistic model. Will this be the pattern for all the countries involved? In particular, will it apply to those that are in their first stages of growth? Needless to say, the low number of countries in which such decertification has been detected, and in particular the short period of time during which it has been detected – not more than one or two years – does not make it possible to make too many conjectures. However, from the analyses carried out, it has been possible to define three types of countries in terms of an expansion in both standards: the countries evidencing “expansionist”, “mature” and “retrocessive” behaviours. Included in the first case would be those countries evidencing a constant growth in the number of certifications according to both standards – growth which may be easily modelled by logistic curves. China is the most representative country in this group, where the main reason to implement ISO 14000 standards is entrance into international markets [32] and [33], and a secondary one is to get environmental and management advantages and benefits similar to those documented for companies that adopted ISO 14000 in industrialized countries. Countries evidencing “mature” behaviour would be those in which the number of ISO 9000 certifications has reached 95% expansion, according to the model used, and a process starts involving a decrease in certified companies which is difficult to model, whereas the number of certified companies according to the ISO 14000 standard continues to grow. Lastly, those countries evidencing “retrocessive” behaviour would be included in the group in which the level of certifications decreases for both standards. In any event, the most interesting thing about the types detected is how the impact of one standard has already started to decrease in the same country at the same time as another continues its “predictable” growth. This is closely related to the first hypothesis which is an interesting formulation. That is why, based on the experience gained from our prior research and the practitioner and academic literature available, we consider it appropriate to conclude this exploratory pilot article by announcing a series of work proposals which we deem to be of interest and which could be contrasted in subsequent research. The first of them, as we have mentioned, is related to the possible loss of appeal of the implementation of MSS, due to the fact that the intrinsic value of the certificates supporting such implementation decreases as the total number of certificates increases. Indeed, we understand that many companies – as has been pointed out to us at least in empirical studies carried out [34] and [35] – have embarked on the process of implementation and certification of ISO 9000 standards motivated by the competitive advantage and the differentiation of image resulting from having the certificate. It seems obvious that the intrinsic value of the certificate is not constant, but rather tends to decrease in an environment in which possessing the aforementioned certificates does not prove to be a distinguishing factor for companies. It is very possible that the same occurred with the ISO 14000 standard. Linked to this fact, it would be interesting to analyze the hypothesis that a competition factor is involved in the dissemination of MSS such as ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 of business management general models, and other models of excellence such as EFQM, Malcom Baldrige and the Deming model. All this means that as companies steadily implement, take on and certify a certain standard, it makes sense to certify for a period of time, but gradually this certification will lose its importance, and be discontinued. Of course, this does not mean that the standard is not used, but rather that it is simply not certified. From then on, the company will focus its attention on other standards or models which it will probably be more interested in certifying, either to show to its customers and competitors or to ensure its proper implementation. On the other hand, and as authors such as Delmas [20] and Potoski and Prakash [36] have stated, it is clear that the political and regulatory context of each country and, in particular, the prescriptive role of public administrations plays a fundamental role in extending these MSS: direct or indirect grants for the implementation and certification of these systems may play a major role in the growth of certificates in a specific country, but also in the decertification process (as is the case of Australia in which very particular behaviour is detected, probably for these reasons). We understand that this is an issue that should be contrasted in subsequent studies. Similarly, it may also prove interesting to carry out an in-depth study on possible losses in terms of certifications owing to a lack of confidence in the system [35] and, in particular, if decertification can be explained by a possible trend in companies which have implemented the system to a substantive extent rather than merely symbolically in their organizations – as many companies do, according to some studies [37] – but they have no incentive to become certified. There is yet another point that could be analyzed in future works in particular areas of the world. For instance, since the ISO 14000 standard is now the management system used as the basis for EMAS certification, it will be very interesting to investigate if the reduction of EMAS certifications harms the European economy or if it lessens the ability of companies to continually improve in the area of environmental management. As has been stated, we understand that all these reflections and working hypotheses in the broadest sense of the word and which we leave open for study in the future are of great interest to researchers who are working along EMS lines of research which are gradually making their way into the academic field, as well as being of interest to different agents involved in the EMS dissemination process (e.g. multinational companies, accreditation and certification bodies, consultants, public sector agencies, etc.).