As we have established there are many benefits to be obtained from environmental management but how do we best achieve them. It is one thing to establish that your company has an impact, or many impacts, on the environment, but another to reduce these impacts and improve your environmental performance. To address this need, many companies adopted a management systems approach similar to that used for quality. However, with different companies operating their own systems, there was no way for interested parties to compare one company's environmental credentials with anothers.

A 'standard' environmental management system was needed to address the many environmental pressures faced by companies from increasing legislation and stakeholders, i.e. consumers, financial institutions and environmental pressure groups), in a systematic and comprehensive manner. It soon became apparent, that a standard for an EMS that could be used by all companies, in much the same way as the international quality standards ISO 9001/ISO 9002, was needed.

It was in response to this need, that standards for EMS with a structured approaches to help companies review, improve, monitor and demonstrate their environmental performance were developed by national standards organisations, such as the British Standards Institution (BSi). Companies could seek certification to these standards through an independent, third party audit and demonstrate their commitment to improving their environmental performance to stakeholders.