Brief History of Environmental Management Systems
The concept of an environmental management system evolved in the early nineties and its origin can be traced back to 1972, when the United Nations organized a Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was launched (Corbett & Kirsch, 2001). These early initiatives led to the establishment of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) and the adoption of the Montreal Protocol and Basel Convention.
In 1992, the first Earth Summit was held in Rio-de-Janeiro (Jiang & Bansal, 2001), which served to generate a global commitment to the environment (RMIT University). In the same year, BSI Group published the world's first environmental management systems standard, BS 7750. This supplied the template for the development of the ISO 14000 series in 1996, by the International Organization for Standardization, which has representation from committees all over the world (ISO) (Clements 1996, Brorson & Larsson, 1999). As of 2010, ISO 14001 is now used by at least 223 149 organizations in 159 countries and economies.
Read more about this topic: ISO 14000
Famous quotes containing the words history, management and/or systems:
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“People have described me as a “management bishop” but I say to my critics, “Jesus was a management expert too.””
—George Carey (b. 1935)
“What is most original in a man’s nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn’t have been content to enjoy the atmosphere.”
—Leonard Cohen (b. 1934)