Why Environmental Management Boosts an Organisation’s CSR 

Introduction

In this post I will consider the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and how it relates to environmental management. I will take a look at the reason why organisations should have a CSR strategy and how it contributes to effective environmental management. 

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental Management

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an organisational approach that is very closely aligned with the concepts of sustainability. Organisations that pursue CSR seek to embed social, environmental and ethical management at the heart of their businesses

CSR is often divided into four key categories, these being :

• Environmental responsibility – the focus of this post but includes actions such as reducing carbon footprint, decreasing pollution and minimising waste.
• Ethical responsibility – ensuring the fair treatment of stakeholders such as employees, investors and customers. Specific action might include no modern day slavery or child labour exists in the supply chain or paying a living wage.
• Philanthropic Responsibility – making the world a better place. This is often achieved by donations to worthy causes that are either directly related to the business aims or have no direct link to the business. Some organisations will go further and operate charitable trusts.
• Economic Responsibility – ensuring that financial management is designed to do good, making a positive impact on sustainability. 

Although there are many similarities between CSR and Environmental Social Governance (ESG), CSR tends to refer to the governance strategies that organisations use to ensure ethical behaviour. On the other hand ESG is a more data driven approach that is used to measure how well organisations are progressing in their journey towards becoming sustainable. 

What is Environmental Management? 

Environmental management generally involves responsibility for the impacts that an organisation has on the planet. This is morally the correct thing to do and shows that a business is serious about doing what is right. From an organisational point of view this has many benefits that go beyond being a responsible company.

How do they work together? 

Environmental management plays a key role in CSR. An effective CSR strategy will cover the triple bottom line social, environmental and economic. Many issues cover at least two and sometimes all three of the triple bottom line. For example the illegal disposal of hazardous waste (often known as ‘fly tipping’) leads to damage to habitats (environmental), potential human health impacts (social) and costs the taxpayer money to remove and remediate the land (economic). So environmental management has much crossover with other CSR elements. An effective strategy will therefore consider not just how issues impact one element of CSR but how they interact with each other, the strategy should be integrated.

Why is Environmental Management important for Corporate Social Responsibility? 

The environment and our impact on it is one of the most pressing issues for societies to deal with. Climate change is leading to extreme weather conditions; decline is species and habitats affects everything from food systems to water quality.

Key environmental issues will often be industry specific. For example in construction there are many potential issues associated with climate change, pollution, nuisance and resource use.

Benefits of Environmental Management for CSR

An organisation can benefit in many ways if it maintains a high level of environmental performance:

• Better relations with communities local to an organisation by participation in local environmental schemes.
• Minimised energy costs.
• Decreased cost for managing wastes.
• Improved corporate image resulting in many business benefits.
• Improved sales due to enhanced environmental performance of products or services.
• Opportunities for innovation, including improving existing products or developing new products.
• Reduction in the chances of an incident occurring that could cause significant environmental impacts.
• Provides for a better legal defence should an environmental incident occur.
• Reduced insurance premiums.
• Improved access to finance, such as grants, loans and investments.
• Products with a minimal impact on the environment may stand out from other products.
• Improved staff recruitment to a reputable company that understands its environmental responsibilities. 
• Reduced chance of incidents occurring leading to prosecution for breaches of environmental law.

Although the benefits above are directly related to environmental management they will boost the wider CSR strategy for example many are financially beneficial such as waste and energy reduction and from an ethical standpoint are the right thing to do. 

How are Compliance Obligations shaping Environmental Management and Corporate Social Responsibility 

There are many requirements that businesses either choose or are legally bound to follow often the term ‘compliance obligations’ is used to describe them. Popular examples related to CSR include ISO 14001, EMAS, The Natural Step Framework, GRI Standards, Acts and Regulations. These all set specific requirements for CSR, including environmental management. For example, the ISO 14001:2026 standard outlines what an organisation needs to do to identify and manage environmental risks. These compliance obligations are popular in the business community and focus CSR into what is needed to comply with the requirements that are set. 

Challenges for developing environmental management 

There are numerous challenges for organisations when implementing EMS such as gaining leadership commitment, securing necessary resources and changing behaviour. They are particularly difficult for small and medium sized organisations who may not have the necessary resources or skill set.

Key elements of implementing Environmental Management Systems within wider Corporate Social Responsibility

A successful CSR strategy will consist of a number of key factors these include:

• Understanding current performance – a baseline study reviewing current CSR performance will need to be undertaken, to ensure that the organisation can concentrate on key issues that are poorly managed rather than those that are successfully controlled. 
• Choosing the important issues – there are many CSR issues for an organisation to consider. It is imperative that the most important are covered in a CSR strategy. This can be achieved by undertaking a materiality assessment where key issues are ranked and understood.
• Data driven – it is important that targets are set to reduce or manage key CSR issues and subsequent progress towards such targets are tracked. This ensures that improvement is clearly and objectively taking place.  This can be achieved by developing and implementing performance evaluation techniques such as monitoring, auditing and management review.
• Transparency and disclosure – it is important that a CSR strategy is transparent such that key issues are reported and that data is objective 

Environmental management systems (EMS) provide a key overarching approach to managing the environmental component of CSR. 

Conclusion

Corporate social responsibility outlines an organisation’s commitment to social, economic and environmental management. There are many benefits from developing a CSR strategy such as reducing costs, improving legal compliance and adding value to a business. Compliance obligations shape CSR significantly by focussing it to issues that are covered by them. Key elements of a CSR strategy include understanding current performance, selecting important issues, being driven by data and transparency and disclosure.

John Binns BSc (Hons), MSc, MISEP (formerly IEMA)

With over 19 years’ experience working in environment management, John Binns BSc (Hons) MSc MISEP (formerly IEMA) is an experienced environmental tutor and consultant with knowledge of health and safety manage