IBM formalized its environmental programs and commitment to leadership with the issuance of its Corporate Policy on IBM's Environmental Responsibilities in 1971, a quarter-century before the first International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 environmental management systems standard was published in September 1996. In 1997, IBM became the first major multinational company to earn a single global registration of its environmental management system (EMS) to the ISO 14001 standard. The company achieved this credential within one year of the finalization of the first edition of the standard. IBM has expanded the scope of the initial certification and maintained this global registration through its business transformation.

The global applicability and scope of IBM’s EMS is unique among the IT industry and across industries. It covers hardware product design, manufacturing, data centers, real estate operations, procurement, logistics, and asset recovery services.

A complete list of IBM entities registered to the ISO 14001 standard can be found on our ISO 14001 certificate. Approximately 10 sites or registered entities are audited annually by an independent ISO 14001 registrar. The ISO 14001 surveillance audits are used to verify implementation of IBM's global EMS.

IBM issued a formal corporate policy in 1974 that called for the conservation of energy and materials in all of IBM's activities. Since the issuance of that policy, we have incorporated our global energy management program into the company's global EMS.

When ISO issued the ISO 50001 standard on energy management systems in June 2011, IBM initiated activities to achieve verification of conformity of our EMS against this newly published standard. Within one year of the issuance of the ISO standard, we achieved ISO 50001 registration of our energy management program at the corporate level as an integral component of IBM's global EMS. Our approach recognizes and leverages the fact that IBM's existing EMS addresses environmental, energy and chemical management programs.

We have maintained a single global registration of our EMS to the ISO 50001 standard for energy management systems since 2012.

ISO 14064 — Part 1: Specification with guidance at the organization level for quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and removals

Following our decades-long practice of quantifying and disclosing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, IBM's internal processes for GHG emissions accounting and management were first certified against ISO 14064-1 in 2022.