An Introduction to Corporate Environmental Management Striving for Sustainability

Citation

Sullivan, R. (2006), "An Introduction to Corporate Environmental Management Striving for Sustainability", Corporate Governance, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 96-98. https://doi.org/10.1108/14720700610649508

An Introduction to Corporate Environmental Management Striving for Sustainability

Setting the scene

There are strong reasons for companies to see the environment as a priority area for management attention. Companies that have developed and implemented environmental management systems have reported a range of benefits, including improved regulatory compliance, cost‐savings from waste and emissions reductions, and improved reputation (see, generally, Sullivan and Wyndham, 2001; Hillary, 2000; Sheldon, 1997). Yet there are signs that many companies feel that they have reached the point where the costs of further environmental improvements are likely to outweigh the benefits that may accrue. This has led to the arguments for improved environmental performance (in particular, the “win‐win” argument that improved environmental performance is good for business) being subject to greater scrutiny than has been the case for a number of years. The questions that are being asked include:

• •

  Should companies implement environmental initiatives that are not justified on cost‐benefit terms?

• •

  Should environmental performance outweigh social or economic performance?

• •

  What is the relationship between public environmental policy and the corporation?

• •

  Should companies go beyond compliance?

• •

  Who has the primary responsibility for achieving sustainability?

• •

  What are the environmental goals that organisations should set for themselves?

• •

  What is the role of stakeholders?

There have also been the, perhaps inevitable, criticisms of corporate environmental initiatives. Critics have argued that most companies set very limited or unchallenging environmental performance targets and that certification (to standards such as ISO14001) does not provide any indication of the quality of environmental performance (e.g. see Krut and Gleckman, 1998).

These challenges to corporate environmentalism mean that it is timely to step back and re‐evaluate both the assumptions that underpinned the moves towards better environmental performance and the relationship between environmental performance and business performance. It is these issues that An Introduction to Corporate Environmental Management: Striving for Sustainability sets out to examine.

Judging the book by its cover…

One of the challenges in reviewing any book is to avoid the temptation to criticise simply because it is “not the way I would have done it”. So, rather than saying what I would have included in an introductory book on environmental management, it is only fair to review the book against the objectives that the authors have set for themselves. These objectives are stated on the back cover (and expanded on pages 8‐9) as being “…to meet the urgent need for a comprehensive and definitive introduction and teaching text on corporate environmental management … while also providing an accessible and thorough overview … for practitioners”.

The book is presented in four parts. The first provides an overview of the context within which corporate environmental management is practiced, and covers issues such as the role of management, the concept of sustainable development, and the role of stakeholders in business management. The second part, entitled “Success factors and fields of action”, considers the relationship between business, politics and regulation. Specific chapters are presented on regulation, market‐based instruments, partnerships and the political economy of business‐stakeholder relationships. The third part then presents a strategic view of the environment as it relates to business focussing on the manner in which companies can position themselves to benefit from the environment. Finally, the book looks at some of specific tools that can be used for corporate environmental management: eco‐marketing, environmental accounting and environmental management systems.

Looking at the content

On certain levels the book works well. Its structure is logical, and a skim through the index indicates that most or all of the key themes in corporate environmental management are covered. It is clear that the authors are very familiar with the key writing in this area, albeit somewhat skewed towards the literature from Germany and Australia. In fact, in addition to the specific objectives defined on the back cover, another objective for the book could easily have been to provide a dictionary of key concepts and terms in corporate environmental management. Indeed this type of use is envisaged by the authors on the back cover (again!) where they note that “Readers can either work through the material in a structured way or dip into the content and follow up on specific areas of interest”.

Unfortunately, perhaps reflecting the sheer breadth of the subject manner, many of the key debates relating to business and the environment appear to be missed or glossed over. As just one example, any history of corporate environmental management (which is covered on pages 33 and 34) should discuss the concerns around environmental pollution in the 1950s and 1960s (e.g. the great smog in London), the emergence of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s (although Rachel Carson and public environmental consciousness do get mentioned much later in the book), the series of environmental disasters in the 1970s and 1980s (e.g. the Exxon Valdez) that marked significant turning points in discussions around corporate responsibility, and the series of major international environmental and development conferences (from the Stockholm Conference in 1972 through to the recent world summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg in 2002). However, none of these events are mentioned, with the history of corporate environmental management focusing primarily on the emergence of environmental management systems in the 1990s. A further consequence of the breadth of material that this book tries to cover is that the treatment of specific issues is somewhat idiosyncratic. For example, the 1992 Rio Summit is referred to three times in the book, twice in the specific context of the launch of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Perhaps a more significant issue is the manner in which climate change is treated. The predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the surrounding policy discussions have stimulated a whole series of public policy responses (emissions trading, efficiency standards, etc.) that mean that climate change is one of the most pressing environmental issues that companies need to address. Yet it was interesting that neither climate change nor the greenhouse effect are listed in the index to the book, and the only reference to energy is in the context of energy and material flow accounting. To be fair, climate‐related issues do get mentioned in a number of places in the book. However, given the importance of climate change, it seems unusual that so little emphasis is placed on climate change or that a specific section of the book is not devoted to this issue. Perhaps this is a consequence of the structure of the book, which is focussed on the implications of the environment for companies (i.e. where the environment is important because of its importance as a business issue). This structure means that the specific environmental issues that companies need to manage (e.g. climate change) and the specific tools available to manage these issues (e.g. environmental auditing) are not subject to systematic analysis. Where environmental management tools are looked at in greater detail, the treatment is quite superficial. For example, pages 287‐290 discuss the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). The GRI is, potentially, a fascinating lens through which corporate environmental management could be viewed, as it raises a whole host of critical questions: Does the GRI cover all of the environmental performance indicators that are of concern? Is the GRI credible – with companies and with other stakeholders? What are the problems with measuring environmental performance? Is there a relationship between performance measurement and actual environmental performance? Unfortunately, these and other important questions are not engaged with. Instead what is presented is essentially a “cut and paste” of sections of the GRI guidelines.

Returning to the cover

For environmental professionals seeking to understand the relationship between the environment and business, the book is likely to be of limited value. While the book may be useful as a dictionary or a quick reference source, neither the analysis nor the descriptions are sufficiently detailed. It could be argued that the book is intended as an introduction to corporate environmental management and that it is, therefore, unreasonable to expect a deeper treatment. While this argument has merit, it neglects the time constraints faced by most working people. Put another way, I suspect that most professionals would be unwilling to invest additional time in obtaining and reading the source material that is referenced in the text. One way of addressing this would be if the review questions at the end of each chapter were answered by the authors (although this, of course, would be a separate book!). The answers would probably provide much of the detail and analysis that is missing from the book.

If the book is viewed as a textbook, some different conclusions emerge. The book's breadth of coverage and its efforts to link environmental management to business management open up a series of interesting discussions around the relationships between the environment and business and the manner in which the two can be integrated, at the policy and operational level. For teachers or lecturers with a good knowledge of environmental and business management, the book could be an important teaching aid, providing a useful framework for students to investigate the themes and topics in greater detail. The questions at the end of each chapter challenge (and potentially inspire) students to demonstrate their understanding of the material presented, while also providing guidance on areas for further study or investigation. However, my sense is that the book requires that the teacher himself or herself is able to draw the strands and themes together in ways that are likely to be of interest to students. That is, this book is designed for a specific type of lecturer – one with a deep knowledge of the environment and of business who can then fill in the gaps in the students' knowledge. For others, a book that is focussed on answering rather than asking questions would probably be of greater value.