by Shane Henson — April 4, 2012—The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), creator of international standards for business, government and society, has released a new standard, ISO 14051:2011, to help organizations better understand the environmental and financial consequences of their material and energy use practices so that they can identify opportunities for improvement.
According to ISO, the standard establishes a management information system approach called Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA), which can be used to trace and quantify material input and output flows and stocks within an organization. The system helps to identify material and energy use practices, and to understand these in costs and physical terms. The information can then be applied to reduce losses and increase gains.
MFCA is applicable to all industries that use materials and energy, including extractive, manufacturing, service and other industries, says ISO. It can be implemented by organizations of any type and scale, with or without environmental management systems in place, in emerging economies as well as in industrialized countries.
MFCA is one of the major tools of environmental management accounting and is primarily designed for use within a single facility or organization. However, MFCA can be extended to multiple organizations within a supply chain to help them develop and integrated approach to more efficient use of materials and energy, adds ISO.
