Environmental management, business and law

Résumé fourni par la source

This chapter considers EM, business and law. Companies/organisations have made huge progress greening. Without law little can be done to enforce EM measures and get environmental justice. The starting point is the US National Environmental Policy Act, seen by many as an ‘environmental Magna Carta’. It can be argued that there has been a paradigm shift to EM ethics but there is a risk that greening of business is merely the adoption of EM tools to improve profits and public relations, rather than genuine environmental concern. Hopefully, this will be countered by corporate social responsibility, the concern for the relationship a body or company has with society. Industrial ecology is another key development which regards waste and pollution as uneconomic and harmful, and seeks to dovetail them with demands for raw materials. This industrial symbiosis means that wherever possible industry should be aware of supply-chains, use by-products and go beyond the reduction of wastes to make use of what remains from the producer or other bodies. This chapter introduces green marketing; life cycle assessment; greenwashing and ecolabelling. Law is crucial, aiding the regulation of resource use; protection of the environment and biodiversity; mediation, conflict resolution and conciliation, etc.