The quality field has traditionally maintained a fairly strict focus on business and customer issues, such as reducing defects and waste and improving efficiency, profitability and customer satisfaction.

Environmental and sustainability goals for quality initiatives are relatively recent. Because the business world is accustomed to treating environmental practices as sources of added costs, the challenge for quality practitioners is to identify where environmental and sustainability quality issues, such as reduction of waste and use of renewable energy, also serve business and customer interests.

In 2004, Larry R. Smith of Ford Motor Co. defined sustainability as “finding win/win/win solutions for both the short- and long-term effects of design on social responsibility, environmental performance and business results—the triple bottom line (PDF, 482 KB).”

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) developed an international environmental management standard, ISO 14001. ISO estimates more than 74,000 organizations worldwide were certified to ISO 14001 by late 2004, including more than 3,800 in the United States .

Resources for quality practitioners in the environmental and sustainability field:

• Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment, an international nonprofit organization created to promote best practices in environmental management, auditing, and assessment

• ASQ’s Energy and Environmental Division

• Environmental Expert, a business publisher with a Web-Based information center for environmental professionals