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ISO 14000
ISO 14000 has become an international reference for "environmental management" requirements in business-to-business dealings. ISO standards are overseen by the International Organization for Standardization. The ISO 14000 family is primarily concerned with "environmental management". This means what an organization does to:
- minimize harmful effects on the environment caused by its activities, and to
- achieve continual improvement of its environmental performance.
Why the initials ISO?
ISO standards are overseen by the "International Organization for Standardization." However, this organization would have different abbreviations in different languages ("IOS" in English, "OIN" in French for Organisation internationale de normalisation). Therefore, it was decided at the outset to use a word derived from the Greek isos, meaning "equal". Therefore, whatever the country, whatever the language, the short form of the organization's name is always ISO.
