ISO 14001 in environmental supply chain practices Dagmara Nawrocka * , Torbjo ¨ rn Brorson, Thomas Lindhqvist International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University, Tegne´rsplatsen 4, P.O. Box 196, 22100 Lund, Sweden article info Article history: Received 11 March 2009 Received in revised form 5 May 2009 Accepted 6 May 2009 Available online 18 May 2009 Keywords: ISO 14001 Environmental supply chain management Environmental practices Environmental audit Environmental management systems abstract This paper focuses on the role of ISO 14001 in environmental supply management practices in Swedish companies. It discusses the existing and potential role of ISO 14001 for three key operational tasks of environmental supply chain management: to communicate the requirements to the supplier, to motivate and enable the supplier, and to verify that the supplier follows the requirements. The study used three different research methods: interviews with environmental managers, focus group discussions and a survey of two multinational companies and their operating units in several countries. It concludes that cooperation between the purchasing and environmental functions within a company is frequently not sufficiently achieved in implementation of ISO 14001; this makes the communication of customer requirements to suppliers less efficient. Building close relationships with suppliers is important to overcome initial difficulties, but this often conflicts with having a large supplier base. For the supplier to have an ISO 14001 certificate is seldom an absolute requirement, however, preference is often given to such suppliers. The value of the ISO 14001 certificate, as a proof of envi- ronmental performance, is a combination of the supplier’s environmental ambitions, the advancement of supply chain practices of the customer and the ambitions of the certification bodies. Supplier audits are not commonly used as they are resource-consuming. Monitoring and verification approaches need further development. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The general level of environmental awareness is increasing and as a result of this, there is a growing interest in the environmental performance of industrial companies. The environmental chal- lenges do not stop at the gates of the companies. Many companies operate on a global arena and competition motivates them to seek economically preferable manufacturing alternatives. This often results in outsourcing of manufacturing to low-cost countries and sourcing of materials, components and services from a range of suppliers. Recognizing that the environmental footprint of the product is not limited to the final manufacturing phase, increas- ingly more attention is being given to the overall environmental aspects not only related directly to operations of one company, but increasingly to the entire supply chains (e.g. see Refs. [1,2]). This puts pressure on companies to address environmental issues and manufacture products with an environmental profile that satisfies the customer requirements, but also to inform about the environmental impacts of the production processes and of the products during their entire life cycle. To meet the increasing market pressures and to comply with more demanding environ- mental legislation, many companies invest in voluntary environ- mental management and communication tools, for example, standardized environmental management systems (in particular ISO 14001), life cycle assessments, environmental labeling of products, carbon disclosure projects, and sustainability reporting schemes. 2. ISO 14001 as a management tool The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is continuously developing management standards that address environmental issues in organizations; consequently, the growing ISO 14000 family now includes, among others: environmental management systems, environmental performance indicators, life cycle assessments, eco-labels, and product design (see www.iso.org for more details). One of the most widely utilized standards is the environmental management system (EMS) standard ISO 14001, which was intro- duced in 1996 and updated in 2004 [3]. According to Potoski and Prakash [4], the promise of ISO 14001 is that if a participating organization adheres to the requirements of the standard, it will increase the chance to reduce its environmental impacts relative to non-participating organizations. * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ46 46 222 02 00; fax: þ46 46 222 02 30. E-mail address: dagmara.nawrocka@gmail.com (D. Nawrocka). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro 0959-6526/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2009.05.004 Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 1435–1443