ABSTRACT
An environmental policy is the very foundation upon which an organization should base all of its interactions, decision-making and future policies, regarding environmental concerns. An organization's environmental policy forms the backbone and skeletal framework from which all other environmental components are hung; if the policy is flawed then all environmental systems could be weakened and prevented from functioning effectively. A public environmental policy will allow an organization to be externally assessed and examined on environmental issues. If a shallow policy is put together with bland statements, designed solely to score public relation points, then such a policy will invariably fail to withstand external scrutiny, and will provide no lasting benefit for the organization itself. An environmental policy statement should accurately reflect all aspects of an organization's environmental policy, including targets and objectives relating to environmental matters. A standardized approach to environmental policies would also greatly increase the ability to undertake meaningful comparative studies between different organizations.
