ISO 14000

ISO 14000 series standards starting with ISO 14001 are for Environmental Management Systems or EMS. They deal with the ecosystem health and human health impact of manufacturing and other businesses. There is a rural ISO 14000 effort dealing with agriculture and especially irrigation and fertilizer and manure handling. It specifies among other things that pig farms can't be placed upstream from water reservoirs.

Stricter standards like Natural Step would require they go there, so that the pig farm would be forced to truly deal with all its waste. This approach was proposed by Henry Ford and guides the Water Keepers Alliance today.

Natural capital protection and the desire to conserve habitat or to increase biodiversity are not covered directly by ISO 14000 series.

China has committed itself to eventually meeting all ISO 14000 standards.