Case study: Voluntary agreements in environmental management at formosa plastics

Three agreements addressing environmental and safety performance, zero discharge of wastewater and sustainable development have been signed between Formosa Plastics Corporation, Texas (Formosa Plastics), and its former adversaries. The key element of the agreements is the improvement of the affected community. These agreements go beyond public information and beyond procedures for public participation. They have led to meaningful public participation and partnership and are unique in this respect. The following article explores the setup and results of each agreement. The initial agreement, the Blackburn-Formosa Agreement, signed in 1992, set the stage for subsequent partnerships. The Wilson-Formosa Zero Discharge Agreement followed in 1994. Finally, the Sustainable Development Agreement was signed by Jim Blackburn, Diane Wilson, and Formosa Plastics in late 1997. These agreements have proven very successful in avoiding disputes and helping improve company performance in environmental and safety issues. In many respects, these agreements offer a model for others in working with an affected community.     

Business-oriented environmental performance metrics: Building consensus for environmental management systems

Today, environmental managers are learning new ways of adding value to their organizations. Before, the environmental department was an overhead expense—an indirect support group required for complying with burdensome regulations. Now, such departments add insights and value during strategic planning sessions, identify efficiency improvement opportunities, provide a superior return on investment, and—bottom line—improve profits. The primary approach to meeting the challenge is a new environmental management system (EMS) that identifies, measures, and manages a diverse set of internal and external customer needs. These needs include environmental cleanups, regulatory compliance, pollution prevention, and design for the environment—and each represents a potential improvement opportunity. Unfortunately, most organizations have so many such needs that all cannot be addressed at once, given the resource constraints of a competitive business climate. Thus, priority is a key concept of an effective EMS. This article describes an innovative application of consensus-building tools that quickly identify and set priorities for diverse environmental programs. The article also shows how appropriate performance measures will align these programs with corporate goals and objectives.     

Case study: Improving environmental management at Rhodia's Paulínia,Brazil chemical facility

At the end of 1995, Lisě Monteiro, the engineer responsible for Industrial Security and the Environment at Rhodia, was seeking possible improvements that could be introduced into the company's environmental practices. He had noticed that one of the company's industrial units, the Adipic Acid Department at the Paulínia Chemical Plant complex, was getting good results in its efforts to control environmental pollution. An outside consultant was brought in to examine the department in greater depth to see what lessons might be learned from their experience that would help Rhodia improve its managerial procedures. This article details how this plant improved its environmental performance with many quality initiatives.     

Voluntary environmental management system standards: Case studies in implementation

Many anticipate that over the next decade, voluntary environmental management system (EMS) standards will take on the same importance in the marketplace as the ISO 9000 quality standards; the draft international EMS standard (ISO 14001) is on pace to be completed by mid-1996. In the United States, despite rapidly growing interest in EMS standards, most companies and regulatory agencies are uncertain about their potential benefits and about the process of developing an EMS. Case studies of EMS implementation, particularly in small and medium-sized companies, are needed to demonstrate the process and identify areas in which further EMS guidance is needed for environmental managers. This article presents seven case studies of EMS implementation in small, medium-sized, and large companies. Each company is participating in an EPA-sponsored Demonstration Project in which a variety of organizations are piloting the implementation of EMS standards (the project is being coordinated by NSF International, a not-for-profit company specializing in environmental and public health standards and certification). The case studies, written by the companies themselves, share experiences of EMS assessment, planning, and implementation, and discuss challenges that are special to particular industries.     

Enhancing environmental equity through decision-making: Learning from waste management

Environmental justice arguments focused on improving the quality of life of the poor contend that environmental 'bads' are more often located in areas of social disadvantage. In relation to waste facilities such claims of distributional outcomes have been enhanced by epidemiological analyses of apparent disease clusters in the vicinity. While politically engaging these arguments have been supported rarely by robust evidence. However, if repositioned in more structural issues related to the unequal societal distribution of power, resources and environmental burdens, they do prompt questions about the processes by which equitable decisions are made in a sustainable waste management context. The paper discusses the scientific and institutional barriers affecting the effective balancing of equity issues, arguing that while deliberative processes potentially challenge 'expert black-boxing' they also challenge current political and regulatory structures for waste management.     

Environmental performance indicators for enhancing environmental management

Traditionally, environmental issues and concerns have been viewed as a constraint to businesses. This has resulted in environmental managers relying heavily on a reactive, compliance-based approach to justify change. Businesses are now recognizing that efficient management in the environmental arena can benefit the entire company and open new opportunities for increased profits. Managers have acknowledged that environmental issues can be integrated into daily business trends and activities. Not only does sound environmental management decrease liability, but also in current markets a “green” image can attract investors and customers. This article shows how one tool that progressive companies are focusing attention on—environmental performance indicators—is being used to convey the current status of environmental issues and improve the management of these issues for the benefit of the company as well as the environment.     

Do environmental management programs improve environmental performance trends? a study of standard & poors 500 companies

In this article, environmental management programs of Standard & Poors (S&P) 500 companies were evaluated using a series of industry and size-adjusted environmental trend indicators. The statistical analysis shows that a handful of corporate policy, governance, human resources, auditing, and financial parameters are highly relevant to improving corporate environmental performance. The results have implications for corporate environmental efforts as well as future government policies to foster environmental improvement.     

Expanding the benefits of environmental management systems through DFE

Industry's role in environmental protection is changing and growing. Increasing evidence shows that a corporation's understanding and response to environmental issues and concerns can have strategically important consequences for some kinds of businesses.¹ Focusing on concepts of prevention, industry has developed and struggled with a number of environmental approaches, all of which attempt to link the environment with common business practice. Industry has followed and in some cases embraced concepts and approaches like sustainable development, eco-efficiency, green manufacturing, pollution prevention, and extended product responsibility. A particularly timely and promising strategy to reduce the environmental impact of both manufacturing and product use while enhancing business success is the integration of environmental management systems (EMS) with design for the environment (DFE) efforts. A desirable relationship can and should exist between DFE and EMS. This relationship has not been well understood, but is crucial to fulfill the promise of each. In application, the institutionalization of DFE in an organization is difficult and tenuous at best. Some authors suggest that management issues block the implementation of DFE.² Others say that DFE has not been institutionalized to the extent that pollution prevention has.³ This article suggests that through an explicit connection between an EMS and DFE, DFE can extend the promise of EMS to reduce industry's environmental impact and produce business success, and it can do so in an ongoing way. The authors will show the importance of an EMS/DFE linkage, suggest company types that might benefit from investigating these approaches, and then review a series of DFE tool types.     

Environmental management and firm performance: a case study

This study has as its aim to help to clarify the relationship between environmental management and economic performance by integrating it into a wider framework that includes the relationship between environmental strategy and firm performance, the latter being understood as the combination of environmental performance, competitive advantage and economic performance. A case study of the COATO farming cooperative showed us that its environmental management, focused on prevention logic, has had a positive net effect on its environmental performance. Besides, the order in which these practices were adopted favoured the development of new organisational capabilities that have contributed to the appearance of advantages derived from the greater accumulated experience of employees in creating new projects that are designed to reduce residues and pollution. COATO has also obtained a competitive advantage in differentiation thanks to an improved brand image and to its increased credibility in business relationships. Finally, a positive correlation exists between the pioneering proactive strategy adopted by this cooperative and the improvement of its firm performance with respect to the other firms in its sector.     

The link between 'green' and economic success: environmental management as the crucial trigger between environmental and economic performance

The link between environmental and economic performance has been widely debated in the literature for the last ten to fifteen years. One view is that improved environmental performance mainly causes extra costs for the firm and thus reduces profitability. However, also the opposite has been argued for: improved environmental performance would induce cost savings and increase sales and thus improve economic performance. Theoretical and empirical research have provided arguments for both positions and have not been conclusive so far. This article discusses reasons for the different views and the differences in empirical research and presents a theoretical framework to explain the coexistence of the conflicting views. It is argued that not merely the level of environmental performance, but mainly the kind of environmental management with which a certain level is achieved, influences the economic outcome. The model presented provides implications for both empirical research and company management in practice. Research and business practice should focus less on general correlations and more on causal relationships of eco-efficiency, i.e. the effect of different environmental management approaches on economic performance.     

废弃产品回收处理企业环境绩效评价初探

近年来,废弃产品回收处理行业日益受到政府和社会各界的关注,而回收处理企业是实施回收处理活动的主体,相关法律、法规的出台对回收处理企业提出了更高的要求。本文在概括梳理相关法律、法规的基础上,初步建立了废弃产品回收处理企业环境绩效评价指标体系,为回收处理企业采用先进的技术工艺、降低环境负荷、加强职业健康监护和企业环境管理提供参考,以适应国家政策要求和行业发展的需要。     

Case study: Browning-ferris industries' computerized system for managing audit and environment performance

While some companies have established scoring systems within their audit programs, few utilize the full potential for measurement of the information gathered and subsequently produced from audits. In this article, the use of a computerized tracking system developed and used by Browning-Ferris Industries is discussed, along with a data report that details the completion of audit items and helps assure that action plans resulting from environmental audits are completed. This and other summary reports from the computer tracking system have provided meaningful measures of individual facilities' and overall company performance.     

Corporate environmental management study shows shift from compliance to strategy

The Abt study of forty-one mostly Fortune 200 nonservice firms forms a new picture of environmental management. We present data indicating that environmental management is becoming central to corporate strategy and is being managed as an arena of competition rather than as a compliance-driven function. We look at environmental management's new role through four lenses: its relationship to strategic planning; its evolving management structures that show environment increasingly integrated into the main functions of the business; innovation in corporate environmental investments reflecting new drivers beyond compliance; and new management systems and measures of firm-wide performance that demonstrate that environment is being seen increasingly as an arena of competitive concern. We argue that much of the change is driven by three realities. First, as customers integrate environmental values into their conceptions of product quality, they are buying more products with identifiably environmental attributes. This change translates environmental management, historically a cost center, into a potential source of sales revenue, a change which cannot be underestimated. Second, recent life-threatening damage to the global ecosystem and atmosphere reframes environmental management. This moves firms toward a systemic and global approach matched to the globalization of competitive and market concerns, and it places environmental management in the strategic sphere. And third, pollution prevention in its cross-fertilization with total quality management is driving firms to focus on managing environment as an integral part of product management, and is helping them to reassess environmental performance as a contributor to productivity and innovation.     

Integrated environmental management: strengthening the conceptualization

Although espoused by many, integrated environmental management (IEM) has been difficult to accomplish in practice. There are many reasons for this shortfall, but certainly a key factor is the lack of agreement among scholars and practitioners regarding the concept and its defining elements. Our purpose here is to sharpen the conceptual basis for IEM by elaborating and pragmatically characterizing a framework for the practice of more integrated environmental management. We outline four fundamental dimensions of IEM: (1) comprehensive, (2) interconnective, (3) strategic, and (4) interactive/coordinative. IEM efforts in the Black Earth Creek watershed in Wisconsin illustrate specific attributes and examples pertaining to our conceptualization of IEM. Acceptance of the conceptual framework elaborated here should alleviate some of the confusion associated with IEM and help move this widely heralded approach from theory into practice.