From Guest Blogger Emma: Three Ways to Build a Greener Business with ISO 14001

The ISO 14001 standard is one of the best ways to show how green and sustainable your business is. With the environment high on the agenda for many businesses, it’s no surprise that the number of ISO 14001 certificates issued since 2004 have gone up by over 70 percent! So let’s take a look at some of the ways that ISO 14001 helps to build a greener business.

Actively Seek Room for Improvement

One of the biggest cost savings that comes from ISO 14001 accreditation, according to Denise Wecker-Seipke, is waste management. Delphi Saginaw, a manufacturing firm, is a prime example of this.

The company’s energy team would walk around the factory out of hours, for example on weekends, looking for ways to reduce energy consumption. These included water usage, air leaks and other sources of waste. Following these so called “energy walks”, the energy team would put together an energy audit, offering solutions to these problems.

The measures taken at Delphi Saginaw offer a great demonstration of how hundreds of small measures can make a huge different to energy consumption and waste in industry. The energy team found that the factory’s water supply wasn’t turned off during downtime, leading to water pouring into drains constantly. This water ended up in a treatment tank, to be treated even if it wasn’t contaminated, which cost an extra 40%.

Reducing a range of different energy leaks and stopping poor waste management resulted in an overall energy reduction of 20%, saving $2.5 million per year!

Changing Employee Habits

When Adidas announced their plan to reduce their environmental impact by 15%, they didn’t just look at manufacturing; they took a holistic view of the entire Adidas Group. One of the initiatives they implemented as part of their ISO 14001 certification was to change employee habits, helping to cut energy use in each of Adidas’ offices, setting targets for each major environmental factor.

Employees were encouraged to carpool to work where possible, and use the company shuttle bus to travel to off-site meetings, to meet a 10% reduction in carbon emissions. Next, employees were encouraged to turn off their PC screens while not at their desks, and to turn off their machines and light switches when they went home, to meet a 20% energy reduction goal.

To save paper, employees were not asked to print unless absolutely necessary, but if they had to, they would print double sided, and encouraged to reuse old paper for notes, to meet a 50% cut in paper use per employee.

The energy saving didn’t stop in the workplace, either. Employees were asked to think about the environment at home too, to meet a target of 25% less household waste, and 20% less water use per employee.

Methods like this are very simple to implement, and by helping employees change their energy habits, businesses of all sizes can cut their energy usage.

Meet Buyers’ Expectations for Environmental Management

In recent years, buyers across all sectors have become more environmentally conscious, whether they’re consumers looking for an environmentally friendly smartphone or car, or industrial or corporate clients looking to improve their reputation for environmental responsibility.

Bowmer & Kirkland, a UK based construction firm, became ISO 14001 certified for this reason.

“The reputational benefit was one of the drives for us in the first place. Getting certification demonstrates a commitment to environmental management and improvement in performance,” according to David Gregory, Quality and Environmental Systems Manager at the firm.

Other firms find that without certification, they cannot tender to large companies whose environmental management is critical to their businesses. One such example is Abate Pest Management, who found that certification opened doors to tendering to large organizations like water companies and food packaging firms.

ISO 14001 offers a way for all businesses to demonstrate their environmental responsibility, since ISO processes are audited by an external organization.