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Corporate environmental management study shows shift from compliance to strategy
Author(s) -
Lent Tony,
Wells Richard P.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
environmental quality management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.249
H-Index - 27
eISSN - 1520-6483
pISSN - 1088-1913
DOI - 10.1002/tqem.3310010409
Subject(s) - environmental scanning , business , product (mathematics) , competition (biology) , productivity , revenue , environmental compliance , competitive advantage , industrial organization , global environmental analysis , quality (philosophy) , strategic management , environmental pollution , marketing , globalization , environmental resource management , environmental management system , economics , finance , market economy , ecology , philosophy , environmental protection , geometry , mathematics , macroeconomics , epistemology , environmental science , irrigation , political science , law , biology
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.