Five Elements for Organizational Decision-Making with an Environmental Management System

Abstract

Environmental management systems (EMSs) are growing in popularity as tools to manage corporate environmental issues. Despite widespread use, existing frameworks for EMSs may not provide organizations with the knowledge needed for decision-making. Through a synthesis of case studies and workshops, we suggest five elements for EMSs to be expanded for organizational decision-making. The five elements are process diagrams, long-and shortterm goals linked to strategy, reliable information systems, risk assessment tools, and collaboration of environmental personnel across the organization. These five elements provide decision makers with relevant information linked to business strategy so that the organization can improve performance. The elements can be integrated with an existing EMS or used as a foundation for implementing one.

Measurement Issues in Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility (ECSR): Toward a Transparent, Reliable, and Construct Valid Instrument

“…When defining ECSR, scholars have generally focused on six different dimensions: governance (Jose and Lee 2007;Marshall and Toffel 2005;Matthews et al 2004;Onkila 2009;Williamson et al 2006), credibility (Bansal and Roth 2000;Christmann 2004;Gilley et al 2000;Guenther et al 2007;Jose and Lee 2007;Matthews et al 2004), environmental performance (Bansal and Roth 2000;Gilley et al 2000;Guenther et al 2007;Henri and Journeault 2008;Jose and Lee 2007;Leon and Moon 2007;Punte et al 2006;Stanwick and Stanwick 1998;Van Buren 1995, Williamson et al 2006Young and Welford 1998), environmental vision and strategy (Christmann 2004;Cramer 2005), environmental spending (Guenther et al 2007;Van Buren 1995), and internal environmental initiatives (Gilley et al 2000). In Table 1, we summarize a representative selection of ECSR definitions and the ECSR dimensions they directly address.…”

Relationships between human resource dimensions and environmental management in companies: proposal of a model

“…For this reason, teamwork is fundamental to guarantee decisions being made in the scope of environmental management of a company [55].…”

Measuring the effectiveness of Parks Canada's environmental management system: a case study of Riding Mountain National Park

“…We argue here that meeting ISO standards is not a sufficient indicator of EMS performance (e.g., Fryxell 2004;Matthews et al 2004), rather the real measure of performance is the extent to which environmental improvement is realized and whether such improvement can be verified. On the basis of a case study of Riding Mountain National Park (RMNP), Canada, this paper attempts to increase the understanding of the relation between EMSs and environmental performance.…”

“…That being said, the ISO 14001 standard for EMSs is a generic process standard for identifying and reporting on aspects of industry environmental operations; it is not a performance standard, and it does not seek particular outcomes (Fryxell et al 2004). The link between meeting ISO standards and genuine improvement in environmental performance has not been clearly established (Ammenberg and Hjelm 2002;Matthews et al 2004). This is, arguably, particularly the case for non-industry organizations, such as national parks that have an explicit mandate to protect the natural environment.…”