Effects of the Inclusion of Life Cycle Thinking in the ISO 14001

Abstract

ISO 140001 is the environmental management standard that has had the greatest diffusion worldwide. In its last update in 2015, it included product life cycle thinking, so that by 2018 all certified companies should include product life cycle thinking management in their management systems. Taking this fact into account, we compared the influence of ISO 14001 certification on the inclusion of eco-design practices in the management of a sample of 1951 large companies, which included 49.8% of certified companies. The results show that certified companies have a higher propensity to include eco-design practices in their management, before the process of updating the standard and during the three-year period that companies have had to update their systems to the new version. However, it has also been found that the proportion of companies that develop eco-design practices is very low among large companies that are usually the driving companies. Public administrations should take note of this fact in order to design programs to promote the integration of these practices, and thus, contribute to meeting the objectives of sustainable development.