The diffusion of environmental management system and its effect on environmental management practices

The purpose of this paper is to examine the diffusion of ISO 14001-based environmental management system (EMS) on five key organisational functions, namely production, procurement, sales, logistics, and R D. In examining the EMS diffusion, this paper focuses on two aspects of diffusion: the extent of diffusion of EMS and the balance of EMS diffusion across the five organisational functions. Data were collected from 286 companies in Australia which were certified to ISO 14001. The respondents are personnel in the company who hold responsibility in managing the EMS. The results show that the extent of diffusion of EMS has a positive effect on green products, green processes, and green supply chain management. In addition, diffusion variation (imbalance) has a negative effect on green product and green supply chain management. This study demonstrates the importance of both the depth and the balanced diffusion of EMS across different organisational functions in driving environmental management practices.