European Management Journal Vol. 18, No. 5, pp. 499–510, 2000  2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Pergamon Printed in Great Britain 0263-2373/00 $20.00 PII: S0263-2373(00)00039-6 Panacea, Common Sense, or Just a Label? The Value of ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems DENNIS RONDINELLI, Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina GYULA VASTAG, Stuttgart Institute of Management and Technology, Germany An increasing number of corporations around the world are certifying their environmental manage- ment systems by ISO 14000 series standards. Advo- cates of ISO 14001 claim substantial operational, managerial, and competitive benefits for corpora- tions that adopt the international guidelines. Critics contend that ISO 14001 does not ensure either legal compliance or continued performance improve- ments. They claim that at plants or facilities already complying with environmental regulations, ISO 14001 certification may merely be an image-build- ing or public relations effort. Theoretically, ISO 14001 could serve as a compre- hensive framework for significantly improving per- formance in a firm with minimal environmental management capacity (in a sense, a ‘panacea’) or as a set of common sense guidelines for enhancing performance in a firm with regulatory compliant practices. Some firms may, indeed, simply use ISO 14001 as a ‘label’ for image-building. The following Case Study of an operationally efficient and regu- latory-compliant aluminum plant that certified its environmental management system under ISO 14001 guidelines in 1996 identifies the impacts three years later. Drawing on the literature of program evaluation, and using archival material, interviews with managers, and a concept mapping exercise, four sets of impacts were found of certifying the plant’s environmental management system by ISO 14001 standards. They included improvements in (1) employee awareness, (2) operational efficiency, European Management Journal Vol 18 No 5 October 2000 499 (3) managerial awareness, and (4) operational effec- tiveness. Many of the world’s largest multinational corpora- tions have certified their environmental manage- ment systems (EMS) under ISO 14000 standards during the past few years, and many other compa- nies are in the process of doing so. ISO 14000, the International Organization for Standardization’s guidelines for environmental management systems, has become the international benchmark by which corporations can voluntarily develop and assess their environmental practices. The ISO 14000 stan- dards, approved in 1996, describe the components and characteristics of an effective system for man- aging a corporation’s environmental impacts (Tibor and Feldman, 1996). They offer a format for developing an environmental policy, identifying environmental aspects, defining objectives and tar- gets, implementing a program to attain a company’s goals, monitoring and measuring effectiveness, cor- recting deficiencies and problems, and reviewing management systems to promote continuous improvement. Some firms are using ISO 14000 guidelines to develop new environmental management systems, or adapting their environmental practices to the international standard, without formally certifying them. Other corporations, government agencies, and environmental interest groups are skeptical about the real impacts of ISO 14000 certification,