College of Business Administration

1) What is an Environmental Management System? What is ISO 14001?

2) What is an Environmental Policy? What is the primary item needed for creation of an environmental policy within a company?

3) Walley and Whitehead put forth that “instead of focusing on win-win solutions, companies would be better off focusing on the ‘trade-off-zone,’ where environmental benefit is weighted judiciously against value destruction. What are your thoughts on this statement? How does this relate to the companies in the video shown in class?

4) Environmental innovations can allow companies to use a range of inputs more productively – from raw materials to energy to labor. Discuss a few ways that environmental improvements can benefit resource productivity?

5) Porter states “If innovation in response to environmental regulation can be profitable – if a company can actually offset the cost of compliance through improving resource productivity – why is regulation necessary at all? If such opportunities exist, wouldn’t companies pursue them naturally and wouldn’t regulation be unnecessary? Discuss Pros and Cons of government regulations related to EMS.

6) Many companies are getting into the EMS/ISO 14000 Consulting Services business such as SAIC. Why would a company bring in a consulting service instead of creating their own “home grown” Environmental Policy and EMS plan? Do you feel the cost is justified for utilizing an outside consultant?

7) In contrast to the benefits of EMS, there are many legal downsides. Would you expose yourself and your company to potential legal issues if you didn’t have to?

8) Several European countries have had success legislating the use of EMS – should the US do the same? Will legislation work as well in the US as it has in the EU? Why/why not?

9) ISO 14001 certified companies have to “promote the goal of compliance…rather than actually achieve compliance”. Should ISO 14001 be used as the “gold standard”?

10) Is granting government relief to companies certified in ISO 14001 a good idea? Why/why not?

11) DoD ISO 14001 Pilot Study had difficultly in terms of applicability and usefulness of quantitative data to relate cost of implementing ISO 14001 with the impacts of on environmental performance. What were the challenges and implementation issues that were uncovered? What were the key sources of implementation costs?

12) One of the selling points for an EMS/ISO 14001 is resource productivity. How would you quantify the benefits to management to justify cost of implementing EMS or obtaining ISO 14001 certification? Reflecting on the DoD ISO 14001 Pilot Study does it change your approach?

13) Madsen and Ulhoi have observed that the adoption of corporate environmental management must include four main topics:

• Influence from various stakeholders to take environmental initiatives, as perceived by managers
• Impact of the company’s business activities, as perceived by managers
• Initiatives related to environmental issues
• Improvements resulting from actual initiatives

Based on the article, who would be the stakeholders for most major corporations? Potential impacts? Potential initiatives? How would you measure improvements from the initiatives?

14) Would your company benefit from putting an EMS in place? Or being ISO 14001 certified? How would you enable your management to champion the cause?