There are many types of environmental standards along the pathway of a product from extracting raw materials through manufacture, transport, trade, sale, use and disposal. They can be grouped under five headings. Environmental quality standards seek to describe the state of the environment.
Environmental standards can be concentrations of certain substances in the air, water or soil.
They can be population standards requiring the protection of certain species that have become threatened or endangered. Emission standards identify the amount of certain substances a facility may emit. Emission standards can have a significant impact on production processes that are regulated, since it is generally better to avoid producing pollutants than to capture them at the end of the production process, creating a waste stream that must in turn be managed. Product standards specify certain characteristics that are deemed necessary to avoid environmental harm from the use or disposal of products. For example, the use of lead in household paints has been banned because some of that toxic heavy metal is likely to reach the environment and pose a hazard, and chlorofluorocarbons have been banned from use in aerosols because they destroy the stratospheric ozone layer.