ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF SOME INDUSTRIAL FIRMS DUE TO ISO 14031 STANDARD

This research aims to evaluate six of Baghdad Industrial firms in different sectors in Baghdad due to ISO 14031 Standard in order to know the effects of factories on the environment, create a database for comparison with certain time periods, continuous improvement of environmental performance, and increasing environmental awareness. Environmental Performance Evaluation (EPE) includes two types of indicators, Environmental Performance Indicators (EPIs) and Environmental Conditions Indicators (ECIs). The research focus on (EPIs) which includes two types of indicators, Management Performance Indicators (MPIs) and Operation Performance Indicators (OPIs). (MPIs) includes performance and infrastructure Indicators and Training Indicators, and (OPIs) include Industrial and occupational safety indicators and an environmental control indicators. In this research, a questioner list with a five Likert Scale level was suggested. The questionnaire lists were answered by employees specializing in environmental aspects in the Middle Refineries Company, South Baghdad thermal power station, General Company for Textile and Leather, Battery Factory, General Company for Food Products, and The Cotton Factory. The data of questionnaire lists were converted to information by statistical equations, SPSS program used to calculate ANOVA table to compare averages of differences between indicators that have been subjected to different treatments in order to arrive at the indicator that makes average is different from other averages.


Introduction
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an organization that has members from all over the world, regardless of the state of the country they work for, whether it is large industrial development countries or under-developed countries, the organization has over 18,000 standards regarding the social, economic as well as environmental aspects of sustainable development [1]. ISO standards can be applied for any organization, irrespective of its complexity, location, size or type. In an organization, implementing ISO standards can assist in providing supervisory assistance on the use as well as the design of the (EPE) [ Figure 1 shows the relationship between the ISO 14000 series of Standards.

ISO14031 Standards Definition
ISO 14031 describes EPE as "a process to facilitate management decisions regarding environmental performance by selecting indicators, collecting and analyzing data, assessing information against environmental performance criteria, reporting and communicating, and periodic review and improvement of this process" [3] [5]. ISO 14031 can work as a monitoring tool that provide the industry with data/information for [4][6]:  identifying environmental1aspects,  relating environmental1impacts and determine which are significant,  tuning criterial for1environmental performance,  pointing out environmental1performance easily,  identifying inter-relationships1of different management1functions,  producing concerns and requirements,  supporting any review process.  identifying areas for action and risk analysis. Additional tools like environmental1reviews and life1cycle assessment (LCA) are giving additional data for EPE. LCA is estimating the environmental aspects and potential impacts associated with the life cycle of products [5]. (EMS) involves the consideration of all factors that have an influence on the environment. This includes the extraction of raw materials, supplies to factories for manufacturing, supplies to packing industries and finally supplies to places for sales. It is worth mentioning that waste is produced at every step of this cycle [7]. The design of EMS ensures the maintenance of all environmental features regarding an organization, where this process simply involves adequate management of organizing and distributing data on the monitoring documents [5] [7]. The organizations which do not have EMS should consider the following factors;  the possibilities of incidents,  conditions of the environment,  risks,  emiss  the scale of material and energy usage along with the legal and regulatory requirements [8]. The evaluation of corporate environmental performance can have two real uses. First, to decrease the pressure on the Earth's ecosystem from a sustainability point of view, as enterprises are doubtlessly huge contributors. Second, to reach better market positions and optimize the organization [6][9]. Figure 2 shows an interrelationship among an organization's environmental conditions and its operations as well as management [3].

Figure 2.
Interrelationships among an organization's environmental conditions and its operations as well as management [3] EPE of ISO 14031 states that in the universal categorization to ECI and EPI indicators, EPIs are commonly used which are divided to MPIs and OPIs, and ECIs offer data regarding the environmental conditions which might be at the local, regional, national or global levels and may contribute to the evaluation of EP within an organization [10]. The use of (EPIs) is needed for monitoring as well and evaluating the impacts of any development plan. This helps in ensuring that the plan or the desired project consists of the required positive impact[10]. In addition, EPIs can also be used for monitoring the chances of any probable opposing events that may take place and hence can assist in the overall protection against such events by motivating the users to take necessary actions [10] [11].
Furthermore, as previous works show, EPIs are helpful in several decision-making procedures, which require selecting environmental viewpoints as well as aspects that are required to be managed. In addition, EPIs can help with the scrutinization of the environmental performance items, which are needed to be enhanced [12].

Performance Indicator Calculation
In order to calculate the indexes of the appreciation, the researcher chooses four indicators as an example of calculation and used the following steps : 3.1 The researcher chooses five-level Likert scale questioners to facilitate the process of collecting information from employees, as shown in      Table 3(c). shown the result of calculation . and Tables 3(d) and 3(e) shows the Summary of (AM) and (AR %) once for All Factories and once for each factory.      The result of the AR% calculations showed that the factories can be arranged from better to worse depending on best apply of ISO 14031 standards, once for each indicator and other for all indicators as shown in Figures 4(a,b,c,d,e).