What we are talking about is ISO 14000, the International Organization for Standardization's latest brainchild - a long list of stringent and far- reaching rules to assure corporate environmental responsibility.
The International Organization for Standardization, based in Zurich, Switzerland, was founded in 1946 to bring about worldwide standards for traded goods and services. Another of its efforts is IS0 9000, which sets product- quality standards.
Adoption of the new standards, which are known as ISO 14000, is voluntary.
But the executives, researchers and regulators drafting the standards, as well as international trade experts, maintain that the pressure on firms to adopt them will be great. That's because consumers, companies and governments will ask that their suppliers be ISO 14000-certified.
Britain's Defense Ministry has already announced that its suppliers must be ISO 14000-certified, according to Joel B. Charm, director of corporate product safety and product integrity for AlliedSignal Inc. The maker of chemicals, auto and aerospace products has plants in Northeast Philadelphia, Pottstown and Claymont, Del.
The company, moreover, is convinced that "our customers will require" that AlliedSignal sign on the dotted ISO line, Charm adds. Conversely, Charm and other say, businesses that ignore customer demand will suffer.
"U.S. companies that manufacture or sell products or services abroad may find their trade severely restricted if they fail to conform to the standards," wrote Christopher L. Bell and James L. Connaughton, Washington attorneys, in a recent National Law Journal article.
Among other things, the new standards, which almost 100 countries, including the United States, have already said they would support, will require companies to:
* Have an extensive, formal system for managing their environmental affairs.
* Audit those systems. The standards will outline what constitutes a credible audit.
