Integrating Environmental Management to Improve Strategic Decision-Making

Today, many companies have identified the strategic importance of the environmental area but few have taken the consequences of this recognition. Driving forces for this development are, among others, legislation, customer demands and image but also the heavy environmental expenses that need to be managed. A growing pressure from all stakeholders forces the companies to incorporate environmental responsibility in all activities, and there is the key to success: Only by understanding and managing environmental issues across the organization, as a normal everyday part of doing business, will companies ensure environmental excellence and long term profitability. Following a model adopted from a new accountability approach (Epstein et al, 2000), four elements, essential to create an environmental management system that is fully integrated with the overall management, are described and a generic model for implementing an environmental strategy is presented. Common pitfalls of the implementation process are pointed out and methods and concepts to facilitate the implementation are briefly described. The connection between economy and ecology is discussed and the importance of a balanced set of performance indicators is accentuated. The integration and implementation of the environmental strategy is a far-reaching process that needs full support from the top-management level and sufficient resources, both personnel and equipment, to succeed. Along with this project a redesign of the information system needs to be done, in order to convey the information needed for distributed decision-making considering environmental aspects.