If you're breathing a sigh of relief after your company's efforts to gain ISO 9000 certification, don't relax too long. You may soon be trying for certification to new international environmental management standards.
For over three years the International Organization for Standardization has been working on a set of standards- known as ISO 14000- for evaluating an organization's environmental management system. ISO 14000 also will include standards for evaluating a company's products through such issues as environmental labeling and life cycle assessment. Final standards on these product evaluation issues are several years away, however.