ISO14001 - An opportunity for blockchain and environmental improvement

ISO 14001 is an international standard that specifies and outlines requirements for an effective environmental management system (EMS). It provides a framework that an organization/platform can follow, rather than establishing environmental performance requirements. After implementing this standard across companies in the past I felt this standard has done vast amounts in improving environmental and energy improvements to organizations which in turn offers financial benefits. When first creating adoption with ISO14001, I often found that people were set in their ways and didn't understand the financial improvements that can be brought to an organization by simply improving their environmental impact. Also in turn by creating a more sustainable supply chain and workplace, work rates and job satisfaction also grew. For me this standard is a the forefront in continually improving environmental standards on an international scale.

One of the requirements of the ISO14001 standard is to continually strive to find new ways to improve sustainability; and in particular over the past few years, focus on supply chains within organizations. This means looking at over all carbon emissions, reducing transportation costs and leaning toward more LEAN manufacturing methods. There are currently an abundance of new technologies being made available to help improve these supply chains. These technologies often when adopted again hold financial benefits to an organization. Another requirement of the standard is to have an aspects register where targets and KPI's can also be set to monitor and maintain current changes and future plans on a regular basis.

We are currently on the 3rd edition of the ISO14001 standard which was put in place in 2015. The standard requires that organizations be audited on a regular basis. Larger companies have had severe struggles with this in the past year especially with COVID 19 restrictions in place across the globe. Initially when thinking of ways to streamline this issue with auditors getting to site I immediately was drawn to a variety of blockchain technologies to improve this, however it also got my brain rattling on the larger picture. As there is a severe lack of education on blockchain technologies and their endless opportunities for improving environmental compliance across companies, we need to find ways to reach organizations and make them aware. ISO14001 provides a perfect baseline for this. It reaches an international scale and organizations for all varieties of backgrounds and practices.

In conclusion if you are a company currently adopting the ISO14001 standard I urge you to look into blockchain technologies. These adoptions can be used to create further targets and KPI's as mentioned above on a regular basis which is one of the requirements of the standard. I would specifically look at the supply chain improvements that can be utilized and energy savings. I also cant help feel that there is huge opportunity when the 4th revision is released that the standard looks into blockchain technologies in a more serious manner. Adopting some mention of this in the standard will in turn help grow awareness around this subject for organizations into the future. Although I wouldn't expect them to fully decentralize their platform and standards I would expect that this as a minimal starting point in the next revision would be of great help to organizations and the environment alike.