Condition of the environment is one of the major problems of contemporary society. Humankind impact on the environment increases continually, causing global changes in many natural processes: the World ocean supplies are depleted, the atmosphere and soil are polluted, the Earth ozone layer is affected. And as a consequence a vast number of different kinds of animals and plants are extinguished. Forestland of the planet is rapidly decreasing, which is accompanied by desertification of natural zones, quantity increase of greenhouse gases, irreplaceable loss of plant and animal biological diversity, natural disasters. Quantity of mineral resources is decreasing.
When you’ve finished getting yourself ready in the morning, you must go get the planet ready — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
All of this made the mankind think about the necessity to regulate its relationships with the world around. Governmental control has become the main way to preserve the environment. In Russia, as in any other European country, there has been developed and is maintained a rather extensive legislation, regulating environmental management issues. In order to achieve high quality of the environment “team play” of both states and industrialists and an instrument, that can be applied in different countries and for different kinds of activities, are required. Therefore ISO series 14000 standards were “born”.
