Environmental management systems: empirical evidence and further perspectives

Europeanisation and the Uneven Convergence of Environmental Policy: Explaining the Geography of EMAS

“…First, the procedural differences between EMAS and ISO 14001 are comparatively small (Steger, 2000). Indeed, it is relatively straightforward for facilities certified to the ISO standard to go on to register for EMAS, and vice versa (Glachant et al, 2002).…”

“…Indeed, evidence suggests that "reputation", "green image" and "response to stakeholders", are amongst the leading motivations for implementing and certifying an EMS (Clausen et al, 2002;Steger, 2000). An important question in the present context is why firms should opt for EMAS over ISO 14001.…”

“…The second, meanwhile, are ideational forces, and notably, the requirements of external stakeholders -suppliers, peers, etc -who define EMAS as a model of organisational "best practice." Indeed, given the ambiguous cost-benefit ratio of EMS standards (Steger, 2000), we expect institutionalised forces to play an especially important role in the decision to adopt EMAS (Delmas, 2002;DiMaggio and Powell, 1983;Guler et al, 2002;Kollman and Prakash, 2002).…”

“…By contrast, firms in countries that primarily export to member states with high levels of EMAS participation are more likely to register to the EU standard. EMAS is exclusively European, and therefore offers clear commercial advantage only to firms supplying EU member states, where EMAS is preferred over ISO 14001 (Delmas, 2002;Epstein and Roy, 1998;Steger, 2000).…”

“…Firms that already achieve high levels of productivity stand to gain little from an EMS in terms of efficiency since they will have exhausted many of the profitable investments in cost savings and process enhancements (Steger, 2000). By contrast, for firms characterised by low levels of productivity, an EMS can greatly assist in the identification and implementation of low-cost operational improvements (Raines, 2002).…”