This voluntary standard for environmental management systems has been endorsed by industries around the world. The International Organization for Standardization ("ISO") is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies from 130 countries. The mission of ISO is to promote the development of standardization and related activities in the world, with a view to facilitating the international exchange of goods and services.

Some of the benefits include:

• A more inclusive and comprehensive recycling program
• Efficiency improvements in operations
• Better reporting systems to identify problems and potential problems and the tools to facilitate corrective and preventive action
• Internal auditing of processes to identify improvement opportunities
• More effective communication