Journal of Cleaner Production 66 (2014) 489e498

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Diffusion of ISO 14001 environmental management system: global,

regional and country-level analyses
W.M. To a, *, P.K.C. Lee b
a
Macao Polytechnic Institute, Rua de Luis Gonzaga Gomes, Macao SAR, People’s Republic of China
b
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper explores the diffusion patterns of the ISO 14001 environmental management system
Received 30 April 2013 worldwide. By using the data obtained from the ISO Survey of Certifications, the diffusion of ISO 14001
Received in revised form was investigated at global, regional, and country-specific levels. The results showed that both global and
24 September 2013
regional patterns resembled a typical logistic growth curve. The parameters of logistic curves were
Accepted 29 November 2013
Available online 7 December 2013
identified using nonlinear regression estimation, and the total number of ISO 14001 certificates issued
was projected. At the country-specific level, correlation analysis was performed and three distinct groups
were identified. The three groups resembled logistic growth curves with different growth rates. The
Keywords:
ISO 14001
spatialetemporal analysis showed that the diffusion of ISO 14001 was from west to east due to supply
Diffusion chain dynamics and change in the volume of total exports.
Logistic growth ! 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Global
Regional and country levels

1. Introduction
Green production is a business strategy and an innovation that
focuses on effectiveness and profitability through environmentally
friendly design, procurement, production, and delivery processes.
The ISO 14000 family of standards is designed to enable worldwide
adoption of green production (ISO, 2012a,b) and covers various
aspects of environmental management, assessment, and auditing
at organizational, process, and product levels. In particular, the
certification standard ISO 14001 has been widely adopted in a wide
variety of organizations across the world since its creation in 1996.
ISO 14001 has been widely researched in different disciplines in
the past twelve years (Albuquerque et al., 2007; Bansal and Bogner,
2002; Bansal and Hunter, 2003; Boiral, 2007; Corbett and Kirsch,
2001; Delmas, 2001, 2002; Gavronski et al., 2008; González-
Benito and González-Benito, 2005; Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral,
2013; King et al., 2005; Lagodimos et al., 2007; Marimon et al.,
2011; Morrow and Rondinelli, 2002; Nawrocka et al., 2009; Nishi-
tani, 2010; Potoski and Prakash, 2004; Prakash and Potoski, 2006;
Qi et al., 2011; To et al., 2012a; Viadiu et al., 2006; Vastag, 2004;
Zeng et al., 2005). Some researchers focused on motivations for the
standard’s implementation (e.g. Bansal and Bogner, 2002; Bansal
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86 853 8599 3319; fax: þ86 853 2872 7653.
E-mail address: wmto@ipm.edu.mo (W.M. To).
and Hunter, 2003; Boiral, 2007; Chan and Wong, 2006; Gavronski
et al., 2008; González-Benito and González-Benito, 2005; Jiang
and Bansal, 2003; Morrow and Rondinelli, 2002; Prajogo et al.,
2012; Vastag, 2004), while others offered insights into the stan-
dard’s potential benefits (e.g. Gavronski et al., 2008; Prajogo et al.,
2012; Summers Raines, 2002; To et al., 2012b). One particular
research area that has drawn a lot of attention is the diffusion of ISO
14001. A significant body of literature on this research area has
been available, offering insights into ‘how’ ISO 14001 diffuses at the
country level (Casadesus et al., 2008; Delmas, 2002; Lagodimos
et al., 2007; Qi et al., 2011), regional level (Delmas, 2002), and
global level (Albuquerque et al., 2007; Corbett and Kirsch, 2001;
Nishitani, 2010; Viadiu et al., 2006). Recently, Heras-Saizarbitoria
and Boiral (2013) have performed a meta-analysis of research ar-
ticles published between 1995 and 2012 on meta-management
standards including ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. They suggested that
future research should be devoted to a number of areas including
creation of meta-standards for global governance, international
diffusion of meta-standards, motivations for and benefits of adop-
tion of meta-standards, and difference in internationalization of
meta-standards, among others.
The insights into the diffusion patterns of ISO 14001 at country,
regional and global levels enable stakeholders of ISO 14001,
including ISO Technical Committees, government accreditation
agencies, and certification bodies, to tailor their promotion and
marketing strategies to suit the characteristics of their target

0959-6526/$ e see front matter ! 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.11.076
490 W.M. To, P.K.C. Lee / Journal of Cleaner Production 66 (2014) 489e498
markets. On the other hand, they help researchers forecast the
trend and development of ISO 14001 adoption at various levels,
thereby facilitating worldwide sustainability development (Robèrt,
2000). This paper aims at (i) identifying the stages of ISO 14001
diffusion at global, regional, and country-specific levels, (ii) pre-
dicting the future growth of ISO 14001 certification at these levels,
and (iii) exploring the spatialetemporal diffusion of ISO 14001 and
the relationship between ISO 14001 diffusion and exports.
2. Literature review
2.1. ISO 14001 environmental management system
In 1987, the World Commission on the Environment and Devel-
opment of the United Nations published the report “Our Common
Future” in which sustainable development is defined as the principle
of “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987;
p.12). The report also calls for new insights into effective environ-
mental management by means of, for example, decision support
systems. When the United Nations hosted the Earth Summit in Rio
de Janeiro in 1992, ISO collaborated with the International Electro-
technical Commission (IEC) on development of environmental
standards (ISO, 2012a). A few months later, ISO and the IEC formed a
technical committee TC207 to oversee the development of the
environmental management system (Bansal and Bogner, 2002). The
ISO 14001 environmental management system was launched in
1996 and updated in 2000 and 2004.
As stated in the ISO website (ISO, 2012b), an environmental
management system that meets the requirements of ISO
14001:2004 has the following characteristics. It is a management
system (or part of an overall system) that (i) identifies significant
environmental aspects and controls the environmental impacts of
an organization’s activities, products or services; (ii) uses a sys-
tematic approach to setting and achieving environmental objectives
and targets and demonstrating that the objectives and targets are
achieved; and (ii) improves an organization’s environmental per-
formance continually. ISO suggests that the main aim of ISO 14001
provides a framework for a holistic, strategic approach for an orga-
nization for setting its environmental policy, plans, and actions. ISO
14001 is also applicable to all sizes and types of organizations.
Many researchers (Chan and Wong, 2006; Gavronski et al., 2008;
Jiang and Bansal, 2003; Morrow and Rondinelli, 2002; Prajogo et al.,
2012; Summers Raines, 2002; To et al., 2012a; Zeng et al., 2005)
focused on motivations for and benefits of ISO 14001 certification,
while (Bansal and Hunter, 2003; Nishitani, 2010; Potoski and
Prakash, 2004; Prakash and Potoski, 2006) tried to explain why or-
ganizations in certain countries adopted this innovation. Potoski and
Prakash (2004) and Prakash and Potoski (2006) reported that the
adoption rate of ISO 14001 varied between countries. Analyzing raw
data from 108 countries, they reported that the adoption rate tended
to be higher in countries where trading partners adopted this
innovation and consumers wanted mechanisms for identifying
environmentally friendly firms (Prakash and Potoski, 2006). For the
lack of diffusion studies of ISO 14001, Casadesus et al. (2008) used
logistic functions to study the diffusion of ISO 14001 at the global
level and in 13 selected countries with datasets from 1995 to 2005.
Casadesus et al. (2008) reported that the global saturation level of
ISO 14001 certificates was 64.6% in 2005 and forecast that the
maximum number would be 160,000. They also argued that by 2008
the saturation level would reach 95% in most of the 13 selected
countries, including Japan, China, and Spain (i.e. countries with the
highest numbers of ISO 14001 certificates at that time). Unfortu-
nately, Casadesus et al. (2008) underestimated the number of
ISO14001 certificates in the global level as well as in country-specific
levels quite significantly because of the lack of a sufficiently long
time series of data e a problem that is not unusual in innovation
diffusion studies (Gatignon et al., 1989). Lagodimos et al. (2007)
focused on ISO 14001 certification in Greece and showed that ISO
14001 penetrated more effectively in the country’s manufacturing
sector than services and commerce sectors. Qi et al. (2011) studied
the diffusion of ISO 14001 in China and found that signaling to
foreign customers and community stakeholders had a positive effect
on the diffusion. Marimon et al. (2011) analyzed the same subject
and concluded that the diffusion among sectors tended to be ho-
mogenous. Despite the fact that many researchers recognized the
importance of diffusion of ISO14000, studies investigating the de-
tails, the stages in particular, of ISO14000 diffusion at the global,
regional, and country-specific levels are almost unavailable.
Consequently, the first question of this study is as follows:
Question 1: What are the stages of ISO 14001 diffusion at the
global, regional and country-specific levels?
2.2. Innovation diffusion
The diffusion of innovations has been studied by researchers
over the past decades (Bass, 1969; Fisher and Pry, 1971; Katz et al.,
1963; Rogers, 2003; Ryan and Gross, 1943). Rogers (2003) argued
that an innovation, such as an idea or an organization practice
perceived as new by other units of adoption, was communicated
among members of a community while non-users might start
adopting the innovation in the course of time. More specifically, the
diffusion of an innovation normally followed an S-shaped curve
with an initially slow rate of adoption, followed by a rapid rate of
adoption, and leveled off at the saturation level. Bass (1969) bor-
rowed the ideas from ecology and epidemiology and showed that
the diffusion was governed by the following differential equation:
dFðtÞ
f ðtÞ ¼ ¼ ½p þ q & FðtÞ'½1 ( FðtÞ' (1)
dt
where f(t) is the diffusion rate at time t, F(t) the cumulative fraction
of adopters at time t, p the coefficient of innovation and q the co-
efficient of imitation. By integrating dF(t)/dt into Eq. (1) with
respect to time, the S-shaped cumulative distribution of adopters is
given as:
1 ( e(ðpþqÞt
FðtÞ ¼ (2)
1 þ ðq=pÞe(ðpþqÞt
Fisher and Pry (1971) proposed a simple innovation/technology
substitution model as:
dFðtÞ
¼ r & FðtÞ½1 ( FðtÞ' (3)
dt
where F(t) is the fractional market share of the innovation at time t,
and r is a constant of proportionality. The time scale t may be
chosen such that F(tmid) ¼ 1/2. By solving Eq. (3), the fractional
market share of the innovation is obtained as follows:
1
FðtÞ ¼ (4)
1 þ e(rðt(tmid Þ
In terms of diffusion of ISO 14001, Eq. (4) is rewritten as
Nsaturation
NðtÞ ¼ (5)
1 þ e(rðt(Yearmid Þ
where N(t) is the number of ISO 14001 certificates in a specific year
t, Nsaturation is the saturation level of ISO 14001, r is the growth rate,
and Yearmid is the year with the highest growth.
 W.M. To, P.K.C. Lee / Journal of Cleaner Production 66 (2014) 489e498
Norton and Bass (1987) compared Bass’s model and the logistic
growth model shown in Eq. (4) and found that the two models
performed almost equally well when fitted to real innovations’
data. The logistic growth model is simple to use and able to make
accurate predictions with modern data on innovation or utility
(Yang and Williams, 2009; Lai and To, 2012), and adoption of
organizational practices (Attewell, 1992; Casadesus et al., 2008;
Guler et al., 2002; Viadiu et al., 2006). Attewell (1992) recon-
ceptualized the diffusion of an organizational practice in terms of
organizational learning, skill development and knowledge barriers.
He argued that government service bureaus, consultants, and
simplification of the technology could facilitate the diffusion. Guler
et al. (2002) studied the diffusion of ISO 9001 certification in 85
countries between 1993 and 1998 and argued that the coercive
effects of multinational corporations and government agencies, and
competition-based mimicry generated by role equivalence in trade
facilitate the diffusion of ISO 9001 certification. Thus, globalization
has quickened its pace since the 1990s and so has the diffusion of
organizational practices such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 (Guler
et al., 2002). In this study, we also applied the logistic growth
model as an analysis technique. In order to update the literature on
the recent ISO14000 diffusion, we investigated the following two
research questions,
Question 2: How many organizations will adopt ISO 14001 in
future?
Question 3: What was the spatialetemporal diffusion of ISO
14001 between 1998 and 2009 based on the analysis of the logistic
growth model?
3. Methodology
3.1. Data sources
The number of ISO 14001 certificates issued in each region and
country was obtained from the ISO Survey of Certifications e 2009
(ISO, 2011). The survey included data on ISO 14001 from 1998 to
2009. The numbers of ISO 14001 certificates issued in 1996 and
1997 were obtained from the ISO Survey of ISO 9000 and ISO 14000
Certificates e 10th Cycle (ISO, 2000) respectively.
3.2. Data analysis
The data were transferred from an Excel file provided by ISO
(ISO, 2011) to a working file. Non-linear regression was applied
using the logistic model as shown in Eq. (5) and the solution was
obtained through minimization of the sum of errors between the
actual data and the fitted data (i.e. the mean error (ME)). The other
measures of errors, including the mean percentage error (MPE) and
the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), were also adopted to
check the overall fit of the logistic model. The results obtained were
checked using nonlinear regression in the SPSS 17.0 statistical
package.
4. Results
4.1. Global level
According to the data provided by ISO, the total number of ISO
14001 certificates issued by the end of 1996 was 1491. The total
number increased to 13,994 in 1999, 49,440 in 2002, 111,163 in
2005, and 223,149 in 2009. Fig. 1 shows the numbers of ISO 14001
certificates issued worldwide from 1996 to 2009.
Fig. 1 shows that the growth of ISO 14001 certificates follows an
exponential curve in the beginning but has slowed down since
2008. The total number of ISO 14001 certificates was fitted to a
491
logistic function using nonlinear regression estimation. The
resulting function is given below.
379900
NGlobal ðtÞ ¼ (6)
1 þ e(0:33ðt(2008Þ
where NGlobal(t) is the total number of ISO 14001 certificates issued
by the end of year t, 379900 is the total number of ISO 14001 cer-
tificates at the saturation level, 0.33 is the constant, and the middle
of growth occurred in 2008 as determined from the nonlinear al-
gorithm. Fig. 2 shows the actual data and the predicted data using
Eq. (6). The R2 between these two series is 0.995 and the mean error
(ME) is 12. However, since the total number of ISO 14001 certifi-
cates was 223,149 in 2009, the ME value is very small. In addition,
the mean percentage error (MPE) and the mean absolute percent-
age error (MAPE) are 41.3% and 46.8% respectively, which are rela-
tively high mainly because of the percentage error going from 71.3
to 376.6% in the period 1996 to 1998. The high percentage errors are
related to the low adoption rates of ISO 14001 in the early years (i.e.
fewer than 10,000 certificates annually). By dismissing these three
years, MPE and MAPE become as low as 0.8% and 7.8% respectively.
Overall, these results suggest that our estimation (Fig. 2) could
adequately predict the future ISO14000 diffusion in the global
market. According to Fig. 2, the number of ISO 14001 certificates
will be close to 300,000 in 2012 and 346,000 in 2015.
4.2. Regional level
The regional numbers of ISO 14001 certificates issued are also
shown in Fig. 1. Europe and the Far East have the highest percent-
ages of ISO 14001 adoption. In 2007, the Far East surpassed Europe
and has since been the biggest user of ISO 14001 certificates.
Similar to the global-level analysis, nonlinear regression estimation
was applied to each region, while the certificate numbers at satu-
ration Nsaturation,i, the time constant ri, and the middle of growth in
year Yearmid,i of Eq. (7) were determined.
Nsaturation;i
Ni ðtÞ ¼ (7)
1 þ e(ri ðt(Yearmid;i Þ
Table 1 shows the values of Nsaturation,i, ri, and Yearmid,i for each
region. The R2 values between the actual and predicted time series,
the mean error, and the mean percentage error are also shown in
Table 1.
Table 1 shows the growth rates of the analyzed regions. The
results suggest that these countries can be divided into two groups.
The first group includes Europe, Africa/West Asia and the Far East
with similar values of r ranging from 0.3 to 0.37. For example, the
number of ISO 14001 certificates issued in Europe is characterized
by Eq. (8).
157870
NEurope ðtÞ ¼ (8)
1 þ e(0:3ðt(2008Þ
The second group includes Australia/New Zealand, North
America and Central/South America as their growth rates (i.e.
values of r) are markedly higher than those in the first group. It
should be noted that the values of R2 of Australia and New Zealand
are relatively low, while their mean error and mean percentage
error are relatively high in comparison with the number of certif-
icates issued. Figs. 3 and 4 show the actual and predicted time se-
ries of the two groups of regions.
After determining the growth patterns at the regional level, the
total number of ISO 14001 certificates worldwide was obtained by
summing up the contribution from each region. This bottom-up
prediction was then compared with the actual data and the
492 W.M. To, P.K.C. Lee / Journal of Cleaner Production 66 (2014) 489e498

250000 Far East

Africa / West Asia
Central / South America
200000
Number of ISO14001 certificates
Australia / New Zealand
North America
Europe
150000

100000

50000

0
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Year

Fig. 1. The number of ISO 14001 certificates issued from 1996 to 2009.

400000
Number of ISO14001 certificates

350000

300000

250000

200000
Global
150000 Fitted
100000

50000

0
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Year

Fig. 2. The total number of ISO 14001 certificates issued e actual vs. predicted.

predictions obtained in Section 4.1. The R2 between the actual data 375,449 using the regional-level estimates, indicating an 8.6% dif-
and the predicted values using the regional-level approach is 0.996, ference. Eventually, the total number of ISO 14001 certificates is-
and the mean error is 514. The mean percentage error (MPE) and sued will be 416,230 using the regional-level approach and 379,900
the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) are 0.6% and 6.8% using the global-level approach, leading to at least a 70% increase
respectively for years from 1999 to 2009. The R2 value between the since 2009.
two predicted time series, the mean percentage difference and the
mean absolute percentage difference are 0.999, 0.5% and 3.6% 4.3. Country level
respectively using the data from 1996 to 2009. In terms of fore-
casting, the predicted value for 2012 is 299,810 using Eq. (6) and The top 30 countries in terms of ISO 14001 certificates in 2009
320,024 using the regional-level estimates, indicating a 6.7% dif- are shown in Table 2. The table shows that the top 5 countries were
ference. The predicted value for 2015 is 345,596 using Eq. (6) and from the Far East and Europe, namely China, Japan, Spain, Italy and
the United Kingdom. There were more than 10 thousand ISO
Table 1
14001-certified organizations in these countries by the end of 2009.
Coefficients of Eq. (7) and accuracy of predicted models. Figures in italics show the
value of R2 is relatively low and the mean error and mean percent error are relatively
In fact, China, Japan, Spain and Italy export a wide range of con-
high due to the drastic decrease in the number of ISO 14001 certificates in Australia/ sumer products. The total number of certificates issued in the top
New Zealand in 2007. 30 countries was 204,942, accounting for 91.8% of ISO 14001 cer-
Region Coefficients Accuracy (from 1999 to 2009)
tificates issued in 2009.
In order to group these 30 countries by similar growth patterns,
Nsaturation,i ri Yearmid,i R2 Mean Mean
pair-wise correlations between countries in terms of the number of
error percent
error certificates issued from 1996 to 2009 were determined. Three
distinct groups are shown in Table 3. It should be noted that
Europe 157,870 0.3 2008 0.995 1 (3.2
North America 7840 0.7 2002 0.992 (1 (1.9 Thailand, Australia and Brazil do not belong to any of these groups
Australia/New Zealand 2200 0.75 2000 0.749 348 28.5 and hardly correlate with each other. In fact, the total number of
Central/South America 4380 0.65 2003 0.979 1 4.7 ISO14001 certificates dropped significantly between 24 and 62
Africa/West Asia 14,600 0.36 2008 0.996 (1 9.1 percent in 2007 in these three countries. The pattern of ISO 14001
Far East 229,340 0.37 2009 0.995 1 (0.5
adoption could not be fitted by a logistic curve.
 W.M. To, P.K.C. Lee / Journal of Cleaner Production 66 (2014) 489e498 493

160000 16000 250000

140000
Number of ISO 14001

14000

Number of ISO 14001

Number of ISO 14001

120000 200000
12000
certificates

100000

certificates

certificates
10000 150000
80000 Europe 8000 Africa/West Far East
60000 6000 Asia 100000
Fitted Fitted
40000 Fiited
4000
50000
20000 2000
0 0 0
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Year Year Year

(a) Europe (b) Africa/West Asia (c) Far East

Fig. 3. The numbers of ISO 14001 certificates issued e actual vs. predicted.

9000 2500 5000

8000 4500

Number of ISO 14001

Number of ISO 14001

Number of ISO 14001

7000 2000 4000

6000 3500

certificates
certificates

certificates

1500 3000
5000 Australia/ Central/South
North New 2500 America
4000
America 1000 Zealand 2000
3000 Fitted 1500 Fitted
Fitted
2000 500 1000
1000 500
0 0 0
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Year Year Year

(a) North America (b) Australia/New Zealand (c) Central/South America

Fig. 4. The numbers of ISO 14001 certificates issued e actual vs. predicted.

Figs. 5 to 7 show the 12 countries with more than 4000 ISO A similar situation happened in most of the other developed
14001 certificates issued by the end of 2009. In Group 1, most of countries in the group, such as the Netherlands, Canada, Finland
the six countries (i.e. China, Spain, Italy, Korea, Romania and and Denmark.
Czech Republic) have passed their maximum growth recently but Table 4 shows the projected saturation level, the rate of growth,
still have relatively high potential to grow in terms of ISO 14001 the year of maximum growth and the correlation between fitted
certificates as shown in Fig. 5. In fact, Group 1 includes most of data and actual data of each country with more than 4000 ISO
the major export-oriented countries in the global market. In 14001 certificates issued by the end of 2009. It is observed that
Group 2, three developed countries (i.e. Japan, the United these 3 groups had very different growth rates and the logistic
Kingdom and France) reached their maximum growth in 2006 or curve generally reproduced accurate actual data.
2008 but their growth rates of ISO 14001 certificates will sustain After determining the growth patterns at the country level, the
in the near future. The same goes for most of the other countries total numbers of ISO 14001 certificates in the top 12 countries,
in this group, including Switzerland, Hungary, Poland and accounting for 81.2% of ISO certificates issued in 2009 (Figs. 5e7),
Austria. Group 2 mostly consists of developed European coun- were obtained by summing up the contribution from each country.
tries while Poland, Austria and Hungary have focused on heavy This bottom-up prediction was then compared with the actual data
industry in recent years. In Group 3, organizations in three and the predictions obtained in Sections 4.1 and 4.2 (Fig. 8). In fact,
developed countries, including Germany, the USA and Sweden, the total number of ISO 14001 certificates issued in these 12
have adopted ISO 14001 widely and their numbers of ISO 14001 countries will account for 76% of the total number of ISO 14001
certificates have saturated at 5,800, 5800 and 4300 respectively. certificates issued in 2015 based on the projection by the global

Table 2
Top 30 countries in terms of ISO 14001 certificates in 2009.

Country Number of ISO Region Exports US billion Country Number of ISO 14001 certificates (2009) Region Exports US billion in
14001 certificates in 2009 (ranking) 2009 (ranking)
(2009)

China 55,316 Far East 1202 (1) Taiwan 2204 Far East 204 (17)
Japan 39,556 Far East 581 (4) Thailand 1864 Far East 152 (25)
Spain 16,527 Europe 219 (16) Hungary 1659 Europe 84 (35)
Italy 14,542 Europe 406 (7) Russia 1503 Europe 303 (13)
United Kingdom 10,912 Europe 352 (10) Poland 1500 Europe 134 (27)
Korea 7843 Far East 364 (9) Australia 1432 Australia 154 (23)
Romania 6863 Europe 41 (50) Brazil 1327 South Am 153 (24)
Germany 5865 Europe 1126 (2) Netherlands 1326 Europe 496 (5)
USA 5225 North Am 1056 (3) Malaysia 1281 Far East 157 (22)
Czech Republic 4684 Europe 113 (32) Canada 1221 North Am 317 (12)
France 4678 Europe 4785 (6) Iran 1118 West Asia 78 (36)
Sweden 4193 Europe 131 (28) Finland 1107 Europe 63 (37)
India 3799 West Asia 163 (21) Denmark 947 Europe 93 (34)
Turkey 2337 Europe 102 (33) Austria 919 Europe 138 (26)
Switzerland 2324 Europe 173 (20) Mexico 870 North Am 230 (15)
494 W.M. To, P.K.C. Lee / Journal of Cleaner Production 66 (2014) 489e498

Table 3
Grouping of 30 countries by similarity of growth patterns.

Group 1 Group 2 Group 3

China 55,316 Far East Japan 39,556 Far East Germany 5865 Europe
Spain 16,527 Europe United Kingdom 10912 Europe USA 4684 North Am
Italy 14,542 Europe France 4678 Europe Sweden 4193 Europe
Korea 7843 Far East Switzerland 2324 Europe Taiwan 2204 Far East
Romania 6863 Europe Hungary 1659 Europe Netherlands 1326 Europe
Czech Republic 4684 Europe Poland 1500 Europe Canada 1221 North Am
India 3799 West Asia Austria 919 Europe Finland 1107 Europe
Turkey 2337 Europe Mexico 870 North Am Denmark 947 Europe
Russia 1503 Europe
Malaysia 1281 Far East
Iran 1118 West Asia

Note: Thailand, Australia, and Brazil do not belong to any of the above groups and do not form a group.

model. China alone will contribute to 30% in 2015 in comparison (the second 13.5%), early majorities (the third 34%), late majorities
with 55,316 certificates issued in 2009, accounting for 25% of the (the next 34%), and laggards (the final 16%) based on the percentage
total number, which was 223,149. of an area under the first derivative of the logistic function. Hence,
By normalizing the number of ISO 14001 certificates to the Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, the USA, Canada and
projected number at saturation, the top 30 countries in Table 2 Taiwan, are considered innovators as shown in Fig. 9. The figure
(excluding Thailand, Australia and Brazil) are plotted in Fig. 9. It also shows that the early adopters were Korea and Switzerland, the
can be observed that most of the countries passed the maximum early majorities were Italy, Iran, Turkey, Mexico, Malaysia, Poland,
growth (except Romania and Russia) and had a medium growth Spain, India, Japan, France, Hungary, Austria and the UK, and the
rate of r ¼ 0.3 to 0.7. late majorities were China, Czech Republic, Romania, and Russia.
Rogers (2003) proposed that innovation adopters could be None of the top 30 countries were laggards as most laggards are
broadly categorized into innovators (the first 2.5%), early adopters developing countries.

120000 30000 30000

Number of ISO 14001
Number of ISO 14001
Number of ISO 14001

100000 25000 25000

80000 20000 20000

60000 China 15000 Spain 15000 Italy

40000 Fitted 10000 Fitted 10000 Fitted

20000 5000 5000

0 0 0
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Year Year Year

(a) China (b) Spain (c) Italy

10000 25000 10000

Number of ISO 14001

Number of ISO 14001

Number of SO 14001

8000 20000 8000

6000 15000 6000

Korea Romania Czech
4000 10000 4000 Rep
Fitted
Fitted
5000 Fitted
2000 2000

0 0 0
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Year Year Year

(d) Korea (e) Romania (f) Czech Republic

Fig. 5. The numbers of ISO 14001 certificates issued e actual vs. predicted (Group 1).

80000 20000 8000

Number of ISO 14001

Number of ISO 14001

Number of ISO 14001

60000 15000 6000

40000 Japan 10000 UK 4000 France

Fitted Fitted Fitted
20000 5000 2000

0 0 0
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Year Year Year

(a) Japan (b) United Kingdom (c) France

Fig. 6. The numbers of ISO 14001 certificates issued e actual vs. predicted (Group 2).
 W.M. To, P.K.C. Lee / Journal of Cleaner Production 66 (2014) 489e498 495

8000 8000 6000

Number of ISO 14001

Number of ISO 14001

Number of ISO 14001
6000 6000
4000
4000 4000 Sweden
Germany USA
Fitted 2000 Fitted
Fitted
2000 2000

0 0 0
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Year Year Year

(a) Germany (b) USA (c) Sweden

Fig. 7. The numbers of ISO 14001 certificates issued e actual vs. predicted (Group 3).

Table 4 regions were 8,557, 6,423, 6,302, 103,126, 124,922, and 1642
The projected saturation level, the rate of growth, the year of the maximum growth, respectively in 2010 as reported by ISO (2012a,b,c). The percentage
and the correlation between fitted data and actual data. errors ranged from 1.16% for Europe to (33.91% for Australia/New
Coefficients Accuracy Number of ISO Zealand. If the aggregated values were used, the predicted global
NSaturation,i ri Yearmid,i R
14001 certificates number of ISO 14001 certificates was 261,739 which was 10,767 (or
in 2009 4.29%) more than the actual number in 2010.
Group 1 At the country-specific level, the top 10 countries in terms of ISO
China 110,000 0.5 2009 0.999 55,316 14001 certificates in 2010 were China, Japan, Spain, Italy, the UK,
Spain 22,000 0.45 2006 0.997 16,257
Korea, Romania, Czech Republic, Germany and Sweden. The pre-
Italy 19,000 0.5 2006 0.998 14,542
Korea 8500 0.65 2005 0.995 7843 dicted numbers of ISO 14001 certificates using the coefficients in
Romania 13,500 0.78 2009 0.999 6863 Table 4 are shown in Table 5, as well as the actual numbers. It is
Czech Republic 9300 0.45 2009 0.983 4684 found that the percentage errors ranged from (1.88% for China to
Group 2 24.77% for Romania. If the sum of these numbers was used, the
Japan 50,000 0.33 2006 0.993 39,556
United Kingdom 20,000 0.28 2008 0.975 10,912
predicted number of the total ISO 14001 certificates for the top 10
France 8200 0.30 2008 0.961 4678 countries was 189,477 in 2010, which was 569 (or 0.30%) more than
Group 3 the actual sum of 188,908.
Germany 5800 0.75 2001 0.982 5865 The above analyses illustrate that the logistic function obtained
USA 5800 0.75 2002 0.996 5225
in Eq. (6) accurately predicted the number of ISO 14001 certificates
Sweden 4300 0.7 2001 0.983 4197
in 2010 at the global level. At the regional level, the coefficients
shown in Table 1 accurately predicted the numbers of ISO 14001
4.4. Accuracy of logistic models certificates in 2010 for Europe and the Far East with 2.33 and (6.53
percentage errors respectively. However, the differences between
The models developed above were checked using the data ob- the predicted and actual numbers in 2010 for the other regions
tained from the summary of the ISO Survey of Certifications e 2010 were quite large in percentage terms, ranging from 17.90 to 33.90
(ISO, 2012c). At the global level, Eq. (6) predicted that the number of percentage error. At the country-specific level, the coefficients ob-
ISO 14001 certificates would reach 250,453 by the end of 2010, tained in Table 4 predicted the number of ISO 14001 certificates in
which was 519 (or 0.21%) less than the actual number (250,972) 2010 for the top 10 countries with 1.88e24.77 percentage error.
reported by ISO (2012a,b,c).
At the regional level, the logistic models using the coefficients in 5. Spatialetemporal diffusion of ISO 14001
Table 1 predicted that the number of ISO 14001 certificates would
be 9820 for Africa/West Asia, 4334 for Central/South America, 7811 Past research (Potoski and Prakash, 2004) and Prakash and
for North America, 101,930 for Europe, 135,645 for the Far East, and Potoski (2006) showed that globalization promoted the diffusion
2199 for Australia/New Zealand, while the actual numbers in these of ISO 14001 via trade linkages. Looking back at the development of

400000

350000

300000

250000
Actual
200000
Total - predicted using
Eq.(5)
150000
Total - predicted using
regional-level data
100000
Total - top 12 countries
50000

0
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Fig. 8. The numbers of ISO 14001 certificates e actual, predicted using the global level and the regional level, and from top 12 countries.
496 W.M. To, P.K.C. Lee / Journal of Cleaner Production 66 (2014) 489e498

Fig. 9. Countries at different locations of logistic functions.

world trade in the past fifteen years, we observed that organiza- To substantiate the linkage between ISO 14001 and cross-
tions in North American and West European countries adopted ISO country trading, we carried out a post-hoc analysis of the associa-
14001 much earlier than those in other parts of the world in the tion between the number of ISO 14001 certificates and the statis-
mid 90s. However, as world trade expanded rapidly through global tical data on international trade from the World Trade Organization
supply chains, trading partners of the West in the Far East started (WTO, 2010), and the plot of the number of ISO 14001 certificates
adopting ISO 14001 in the early 2000s. Recently, global supply against export volumes in 2001, 2005, and 2009 was produced.
chains have extended to countries in South America and Euro-Asia. Fig. 11 shows that there is a relationship between these two vari-
Fig. 10 shows the spatialetemporal plots of ISO 14001 adoption ables (R ¼ 0.686, p < 0.01 for 2001 and 2005; R ¼ 0.537, p < 0.01 for
based on the ISO data in 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2009, indicating that 2009), thereby confirming the linkage between ISO 14001 adoption
only the UK and Japan had more than 500 ISO 14001-certified or- and international trading. However, the linkage between ISO 14001
ganizations by the end of 1997, and 17 countries, including 10 EU and international trading becomes less significant when the
countries, Canada, the USA, Australia, Japan, Korea, China and number of ISO 14001 certificates increases, suggesting that
Taiwan had more than 500 ISO 14001-certified organizations by the competition-based mimicry (Guler et al., 2002) diminishes when
end of 2001. The number of countries with more than 500 ISO the adoption of ISO 14001 reaches the final stage.
14001-certified organizations increased to 29 and Japan had the
largest number of organizations at 23,466 by the end of 2005. The 6. Discussions and conclusion
number of countries with more than 500 ISO 14001-certified or-
ganizations further increased to 48 and China was the country with The findings of the study illustrate that the diffusion of ISO
the largest number at 55,316 by the end of 2009. 14001 closely resembles a logistic function and the number of ISO
14001 certificates tends to saturate at 379,900 worldwide, repre-
Table 5 senting a 51.5% increase from 250,972 by the end of 2010. Eq. (6)
Top 10 countries in terms of ISO 14001 certificates in 2010 with predicted numbers.
shows that there would be an increase of 50,000 certificates each
Top 10 countries Numbers of Predicted numbers Error in in 2011 and 2012 and the increase in 45,800 certificates from the
in terms of ISO ISO 14001 using the coefficients percent beginning of 2013 to the end of 2015. The biggest number of new
14001 in 2010 certificates given in Table 4
ISO 14001 certificates issued will be in the Far East, followed by
China 69,784 68,471 (1.88% Europe and Africa/West Asia.
Japan 35,016 39,459 12.69% The study contributes to the understanding of how the envi-
Spain 18,347 18,879 2.90%
Italy 17,064 16,735 (1.93%
ronmental management practice (i.e. ISO 14001) has diffused
UK 14,346 12,729 (11.27% worldwide. New ideas and practices are normally adopted by or-
Korea 9681 8183 (15.47% ganizations in developed countries which have more resources.
Romania 7418 9257 24.77% Through the close collaboration among firms in cross-country
Czech Republic 6629 5679 (14.33%
supply chains, ISO 14001 has diffused from developed countries
Germany 6001 5793 3.46%
Sweden 4622 4292 (7.14% to major exporting countries, mostly located in the Far East. In
recent years, as globalization evolves more rapidly, emerging na-
Sum: 188,908 191,468 569 (0.30%)
tions such as Brazil, Russia, India and some Middle East and African
 W.M. To, P.K.C. Lee / Journal of Cleaner Production 66 (2014) 489e498 497

Fig. 10. Countries had more than 500 ISO 14001 certificates in 1997, 2001, 2005, and 2009 respectively.

countries start promoting ISO 14001 nationwide to increase their
organizations’ competitiveness. Nevertheless, it should be noted
that the logistic model did not apply to Australia, Thailand, and
Brazil that experienced a significant drop after 2006. This is dis-
turbing because, Brazil and Thailand were considered early
adopters of ISO 14001, and now they seem to be “early abandoners”.
There could be some events (e.g. pollution problems caused by
certain well-known ISO 14001 certified firms) occurred in these
countries, that triggered their firms to question the effectiveness of
ISO 14000. Future research needs to be carried out to study this
specific phenomenon.
The logistic functions developed in the present study have sig-
nificant implications for national bodies and certification companies.
National bodies can review the development of ISO 14001 in their
own countries and assist organizations in extending the scope of
environmental certification beyond the organizational level and to
the process and product levels. For instance, relevant approaches,
such as energy management, life cycle assessment and eco-labeling,
can be applied to different process- and product-level activities. For
certification companies, the findings of the study enable them to
better allocate resources to different regions for training and certi-
fication purposes, and to explore the opportunities in countries in the
categories of late majorities and laggards.
With regard to the implications for organizations, our results
suggest that ISO 14001 is a highly popular management standard
for firms of both developed and developing countries. While ISO

Fig. 11. The number of ISO 14001 certificates vs. export volumes in 2001, 2005, and 2009.
498 W.M. To, P.K.C. Lee / Journal of Cleaner Production 66 (2014) 489e498
14001 requires certified firms to establish environmental objectives
and goals, many firms simply look at electricity savings, less paper
and water consumption, and reduction in pollutant emissions as
environmental goals. On the other hand, stakeholders, such as
customers and governments, tend to have high expectations of the
scopes and levels of environmental practices adopted by organi-
zations. However, it is quite possible that an organization might
shift its environmental burden from one area to another unless a
holistic approach, such as life cycle analysis, is adopted
(Shrivastava, 1995; To et al., 2012b).
The correlation analysis between the number of ISO 14001
certificates and export volumes in three discrete time periods,
namely 2001, 2005, and 2009, indicates that there is a significant
linkage between ISO 14001 adoption and international trading. The
results show that the strength of the relationship weakens when
the adoption of ISO 14001 reaches a more mature stage. The finding
also indicated that geographic distance may not be an issue in
innovation diffusion, in particular with the advent of information
and communication technology. Nevertheless, one should note that
the models presented in this paper should be used to explain ‘how’
and predict ‘how far’ the diffusion would proceed. The drivers and
enablers of, and motivations for the diffusion need to be further
explored.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive comments
given by anonymous reviewers and the Subject Editor, whose
suggestions helped improve the quality of the paper substantially.
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