ABSTRACT
A close look at the activities of an environmental manager reveals that compliance with environmental laws and regulations occupies the predominant portion of his or her time. The implicit assumption has been that compliance with environmental regulations will result in environmental protection. From an environmental perspective, comprehensive product stewardship involves minimizing adverse impacts on material, energy, and environmental resources in each step along the life-cycle continuum from extraction of raw materials, to production of those materials into useful building blocks, to conversion into goods, to distribution, to consumption, and ultimately to disposal. Voluntary environmental management thus tends to be a strategic, cross-functional process by which an organization identifies and achieves its necessary and appropriate short- and long-term environmental performance goals. The Environmental Management System (EMS) is a component of the organization’s overall management system. A good EMS drives an organization towards activities and provides it with capabilities that are of interest to its stakeholders.
