Operations Management: An Integrated Approach, 5th Edition

THE SUSTAINABILITY LINK

Just as TQM must be extended to everyone in the supply chain, so must sustainability standards for them to have a meaningful impact. Today companies are under increasing pressure from consumers and governmental agencies to be sustainable. As a result they are making numerous claims about their performance. So, how can we as consumers know that these claims are true? Being able to objectively verify these claims is critical. The ISO 14000 voluntary standards help with this verification. Recall from the chapter that ISO 14000 is a set of international standards and a certification focusing on a company's environmental responsibility. As with other quality measures, setting measurable standards for sustainability is critical. ISO 14000 is designed to provide customers with reasonable assurance that the environmental performance claims of a company are correct. It is important to note, however, that the ISO 14000 standards do not themselves specify environmental performance goals. ISO 14000 is similar to ISO 9000 as both pertain to the process of how the product is produced, rather than the characteristics of the product itself.

When it comes to standards for product characteristics, it is up to the customers and other stakeholders to hold companies accountable. For that reason, there have been numerous other standards that have been developed by the government and various nonprofit agencies. For example, in the area of materials three sustainability standards ...