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U.S. environmental policies have brought dramatic improvements in air and
water quality in this country over the past 25 years, but further expansion of
"command-and-control regulation" will deliver diminishing returns, say
researchers at the University's Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise.
"In the future, significant gains in environmental quality are more likely
to come from widespread adoption of pollution prevention practices than from
more stringent regulation of end-of-pipe emissions," say Dennis A. Rondinelli
and Michael A. Berry.
Rondinelli is Glaxo distinguished international professor of management and
director of the Center for Global Business Research, and Berry is research
professor at the center. In a new policy paper, "Corporate Environmental
Management and Public Policy: Bridging the Gap," the two make a case for a
fundamental shift in U.S. environmental policy.
Their report, in a special 2000 issue of American Behavioral Scientist,
traces changes occurring in the way American corporations handle environmental
issues. Since the late 1980s, an increasing number of U.S. manufacturers and
multinational enterprises operating here have adopted active environmental
management systems. Such policies not only commit firms to comply with
regulations but also to seek ways of preventing pollution at the source rather
than simply cleaning it up afterwards.
Although some companies still see regulatory compliance as a burden and
attempt to minimize costs, most large corporations and many smaller ones now
consider environmental protection as a necessary part of total quality
management. Many corporations integrate proactive environmental management
practices into their overall business strategies to reduce costs, improve
efficiency, compete more effectively and develop new products and
services.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is not set up to regulate
industry's operations effectively or to provide adequate incentives for firms
to go beyond regulatory compliance, Rondinelli and Berry wrote. National, state
and local public policies do not yet reflect the new trends in corporate
environmental management.
Because of fragmented adoption of and amendments to environmental
legislation in Congress, the EPA has no comprehensive policy for improving
environmental quality, they said. The complex, costly and inflexible regulatory
system that still dominates environmental policy in the United States neither
encourages nor rewards corporate environmental management systems that exceed
compliance requirements.
"New policies must provide a holistic and integrated approach to
environmental management that focuses on performance improvements rather than
regulatory compliance, uses economic incentives to encourage clean
manufacturing and the adoption of pollution prevention technologies and
processes and forges public-private partnerships for improving environmental
quality," the researchers wrote.
Ultimately, bridging the gap between public policy and corporate
environmental management requires adopting a new philosophy in both public and
private sectors that emphasizes what the World Business Council for Sustainable
Development calls "eco-efficiency." Firms attain eco-efficiency by reducing the
energy- and material-intensity of goods and services, reducing toxic
dispersion, enhancing recyclability, maximizing use of renewable resources,
extending product durability and improving goods and services.
Public policies can play a crucial role in encouraging businesses to
integrate eco-efficiency practices into their overall business strategies and
in rewarding them for doing it, Rondinelli and Berry wrote.
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