ABSTRACT
Good intentions by themselves are insufficient to sustain environmental compliance. To achieve total environmental compliance, organizations must prepare a strong foundation from which they can implement the practices critical to ascertaining and following environmental laws. Because environmental issues typically affect several aspects of an organization’s operations, committing resources haphazardly to envi ronmental management efforts is neither effective nor efficient. To meet the chal lenge of achieving environmental compliance, organizations must exercise leader ship, adequately staff the environmental function, and establish a compliance program. Organizations that build sound foundations for achieving compliance can address their environmental obligations better than those who add resources as each new crisis reveals another flaw in their approach to compliance issues. Absent a strong foundation, environmental functions tend to deteriorate into sporadic and uncoordi nated efforts that inevitably fail to fulfill some compliance obligations.
