Sustainable development and pollutant outcomes: The case of ISO 14001 in Korea

Abstract

ISO 14001 is one of the best known and most common globally adopted environmental management system-based standards under current sustainable development schemes. This paper investigates the impact of ISO 14001 on the level of pollutant emissions across manufacturing facilities in Korea. The level of pollutant emissions in 22 ISO 14001-certified facilities in Korea is compared with that of 52 non-certified ones. Through statistical analyses based on the Shapiro-Wilk and Mann-Whitney U tests, it is concluded that ISO 14001-certified facilities and non-certified facilities are not significantly different in terms of the level of pollutant emissions produced. These statistical results indicate that ISO 14001 may not contribute to the actual improvement of environmental performance in Korea.

Environmental management system according toISO14001:2015 as a driver to sustainable development

“…On the business side, the centrality in the global debate of the concept of “sustainable” has meant that the environmental management of production processes became a critical success factor in order to compete on the market. In fact, if recently the green character was a peculiarity of some organization particularly sensitive to environmental issues, today it becomes a crucial aspect for business competitiveness (Baek, 2018; Lee, Noh, Choi, & Rha, 2017; Riaz & Saeed, 2019; Santos, Rebelo, Lopes, Alves, & Silva, 2016), in a world looking for new business (Bravi, Murmura, & Santos, 2017; Félix, Gonçalves, Jimenez, & Santos, 2019) where customers are very demanding (Bravi, Murmura, & Santos, 2018; Santos, Murmura, & Bravi, 2018b) in search of value (Costa, Barbosa, Santos, & Alves, 2019; Santos et al, 2018; Santos et al, 2019) and product quality (Araújo, Santos, Costa, & Sá, 2019; Rodrigues, Sá, Ferreira, Silva, & Santos, 2019; Sá, Amaral, Barreto, Carvalho, & Santos, 2019; Santos, Ferreira Rebelo, Doiro, & Santos, 2017; Santos, Murmura, & Bravi, 2018b; Santos, Murmura, & Bravi, 2019; Vieira et al, 2019; Zgodavova, Hudec, & Palfy, 2017).…”

Environmental management certification and environmental performance: Greening or greenwashing?

“…In the last two decades, many firms have adopted third‐party certifiable environmental management systems (EMSs) based on voluntary international standards (Baek, 2018; Chiarini, 2017; Chiarini, 2019; Heras‐Saizarbitoria & Boiral, 2013; Lozano, 2019; Wagner, 2019). Two main frameworks have been disseminated for this purpose: ISO 14001 and the Eco‐Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS).…”

Communicating environmental management certification: Signaling without signals?

“…Voluntary certifiable standards for corporate environmental management formalize, systematize, and legitimize a very diverse set of managerial activities and are being adopted by an increasing number of organizations across the world (Boiral, Guillaumie, Heras‐Saizarbitoria, & Tayo Tene, ; Boiral, Heras‐Saizarbitoria, & Testa, ; Demirel, Iatridis, & Kesidou, ; Iatridis & Kesidou, ), despite a certain level of saturation and decline in the dissemination of these standards has been also evidenced (e.g., Chiarini, ; Daddi, De Giacomo, Frey, & Iraldo, ). Among these standards, the environmental certifiable management system standards, also referred to as meta‐standards, are the most prominent (Baek, ; Chiarini, ; Heras‐Saizarbitoria & Boiral, ; Qi, Zeng, Li, & Tam, ). These certifiable standards, such as ISO 14001 and the Eco‐Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), are based on traditional principles of management, such as the plan–do–check–act (PDCA) cycle of continual improvement, and have similar external certification processes.…”