At the recent Informal Consultation in Brunei Darussalam, the ASEAN Economic Ministers and the Ministers from the Closer Economic Relations (CER) countries, Australia and New Zealand, agreed that cooperation in standards and conformance would be one of the priority areas for the AFTA- CER Linkage. The exchange of information and collaborative work on ISO 14000 environmental management systems (EMS) is a priority area for this cooperation.

Written to apply to all types and sizes of organisations in diverse geographical, cultural and social conditions, the ISO 14000 standards are not prescriptive about environmental performance outcomes. Although this is one of their strengths, the possibility of quite differing attention being given to levels of environmental performance supports the Ministerial priority for information exchange and collaboration between the economies. It also suggests that a focus of these activities should be a working towards building confidence among the economies about how these standards will be interpreted within ASEAN and elsewhere.

The standards are expected to raise the profile of environmental decision making in day-to-day commercial activities as their related ISO 9000 series standards did for quality management. Within the ISO there has been considerable discussion on trade and regulation implications of the 14000 series standards. Governments need to encourage their implementation in a way which maximises environmental performance outcomes without compromising trade agreements.

Brian O’Neil
Environment Protection Agency, Australia