Environmental performance of the cement industry in Vietnam: the influence of ISO 14001 certification

This empirical study is the first to analyze the response of Vietnamese cement plants to ISO 14001. The influence of ISO-compliant environmental management systems in Vietnam's cement industry was studied by examining the differences between pre- and post-certification and by comparing the results between certified and non-certified cement plants using a questionnaire and environmental indicators. The results of the management performance analysis demonstrated that the environmental awareness and attention in certified plants was better than in the non-certified plants. On operational performance, the results showed significant differences between the certified and non-certified plants on selected environmental indicators like dust, SO2 and NO2 as well as a significant improvement after the adoption of ISO 14001. As a whole, the certified plants performed better than the non-certified ones on management and operational aspects. This study has a twofold wider impact. It shows the methodological difficulties of assessing the impact of environmental management systems in situations of early implementation and low company awareness. Moreover, our findings indicate that ISO 14001 has the potential to improve organizations' environmental performance in a fast-developing country characterized by impressive industrial growth in recent decades.