AbstractThis study characterized the costs and benefits associated with adopting ISO 14001 environmental management system (EMS) standard, based on a survey of ISO 14001‐registered organizations in Canada. Decision makers are contemplating whether it is necessary to register to one or more of the ISO and other international standards and, if so, which ones. Furthermore, an organization that has registered separate departments to different standards and contemplates integrating such standards across the different units may be interested in attributes of particular units that will facilitate integration. Discriminant analysis was conducted to characterize the factors that distinguish between organizations that adopted ISO 14001 alone (single standard), versus those that registered to ISO 14001 along with other quality, health, and safety standards (i.e., multiple standards). The most important factor that motivated adoption to ISO 14001 was to establish a positive environmental profile, thereby promoting goodwill and integrity. Internal factors tended to dominate the motivations for adopting ISO 14001, supporting the hypothesis that external benefits may not be fully realized due to market and policy failure. Internal costs associated with registration depended on the size of the organization and ranged, on average, from CND$17,000 (for organizations with less than 100 employees), to CND$42,000 (for organizations with more than 500 employees). External costs depended more on the type (i.e., sector of the Canadian economy) than on size of the organization. The most important variable that distinguished between Canadian organizations that adopted ISO 14001 alone versus those that adopted ISO 14001 and other standards was whether the organization had an international orientation, that is, those with more than 50% of services or exports to other countries. [EconLit citations: L150, L200, Q290]. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 19: 439–457, 2003.