Evaluation of the costs and benefits of an environmental management system

The implementation of ISO 14000 certification in a company involves a set o f costs and benefits that must be known in order to assess the investment e ffectively in terms of environmental quality. However, as will be shown, th ese figures can be di? cult to calculate, mainly because of a lack of refer ence data or specific assessment criteria. Moreover, few companies have so far implemented an Environmental Management System. Investments in environm ent quality sometimes simply look like costs, but benefits do exist and the se are often economically quantifiable. Such benefits depend on the choice and the pursuit of aims, on the respect of rules (e.g. no omissions) and on environmental efficiency (e.g. no waste), and can only be calculated follo wing an in-depth analysis of the system. A first and approximate estimate o f these costs and benefits has been obtained for a number of real industria l cases, mainly in the chemical field, and the survey results are given in this paper. The research was carried out in Italy in companies implementing an Environmental Management System in most cases in accordance with the IS O 14000 series.