IN TRANSITION
New Directions for Corporate Environmental Strategy
Corporate environmental excellence, as already mentioned, helps ensure compliance, reduce costs, and enhance an organization's environmental profile. Sometimes such strategic initiatives are adopted to avoid potential liabilities under changing regulations. Sometimes they help the organization to respond to new market opportunities or to competition. But most often they demonstrate that companies are becoming more responsive to all of the stakeholders involved with their operations--not only shareholders and customers but employees, the communities in which they operate, and the public at large.
The process of embedding environmental protection into overall business strategy has changed the profile of many Environment, Health and Safety divisions from compliance-oriented support departments to strategic organizations that weave environmental management into all aspects of a company's activities--from customer to supplier, and from production line to accounting office. Such strategic thinking emphasizes:
- corporate environmental stewardship, inclusive of environmental issues external to corporate operations and facilities management;
- movement of environmental protection "up" the value chain through continuous design and process improvement (Total Quality Environmental Management);
- strategic planning and managing for the unknown with respect to emerging markets, evolving global environmental regulations and standards, industry best practices, and stakeholder expectations.
For example, the establishment of voluntary environmental standards are providing impetus for transnational companies to adopt world-wide "best practices" which emphasize a more integrated approach to environmental management. Some such standards include International Standards Organization’s ISO 14000, the International Chamber of Commerce’s (ICC) Business Charter on Sustainable Development, the Global Environmental Management Initiative’s (GEMI) Environmental Self-Assessment Program, and Total Quality Environmental Management (TQEM) programs.
A Changing Regulatory Environment
In addition, as better science demonstrates how all the resources of a region form the interconnected parts of a functioning ecosystem, regulatory agencies are adapting the basis on which they write standards and regulations. Community-Based Environmental Protection (CBEP), for example, is a new approach that the EPA is taking to improve the effectiveness of our nation-wide regulations and other environmental programs. The goal of this "place-driven," or ecosystem-based environmental management is to assess and manage the quality of air, water, land and living resources in a place as a whole to better reflect regional and local conditions, and to work more effectively in partnerships.
This new community-based focus emphasizes public participation—both in type and amount of public interaction and access—and prioritization processes—assessing a community's priorities.
The result of many of these trends is the ability of corporations and other large private landowners to manage their properties for wildlife habitat, adding to the overall environmental health of the functioning ecosystem in which they operate.