Europe's (Mild) Greening of Corporate Environmental Management

This article summarises the results of a research study into the state of the art of corporate environmental management (CEM) amongst Europe's largest industrial companies.¹ Specifically, we evaluate the quality of CEM at corporate level, i.e. for a company's global operations rather than at site or regional level. A total of 187 companies covering 15 industry sectors in 18 European countries participated in the study. The results suggest that CEM continues to represent a significant challenge to many of the largest companies in Europe. Whilst companies seem to have made good progress in terms of allocating responsibility for corporate environmental issues, of managing those responsibilities and of monitoring their environmental performance, the more difficult and challenging issues in the areas of interactive stakeholder dialogue, product stewardship and strategic financial planning remain largely uncharted territories.