Advice to Council 99-02 — Environmental Management Systems and Compliance Report
DISTRIBUTION: General
J/99-02/ADV/Rev.1
ORIGINAL: English
Environmental Management Systems and Compliance Report
The Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) compliments the North American Working Group on Environmental Enforcement and Compliance Cooperation and the Secretariat of the CEC for the publication in 1998 of the Environmental Management Systems (EMS) and Compliance Report. The publication adds to the knowledge on this subject and on the International Organization on Standardization’s Specification Standard 14001 (ISO 14001). The report also contributes to sustaining cooperation as encouraged by the Council and JPAC.
IN ACCORDANCE with its mandate to provide advice to the Council of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), JPAC is concerned that some still urge that the EMS could replace regulation and enforcement. Responsible stakeholders on all sides of the issue have indicated disapproval of such an outcome. Indeed, JPAC strongly supports the present trend of employing such environmental management systems in addition to or beyond compliance requirements and under Council leadership, and that should continue to be an area of cooperative focus of the CEC, the Parties, NGOs, and the industrial sector.