“What Are The Perceived And/Or Realized Goals Of The Corporate Environmental Manager? What Is The ‘Real’ Goal?”
March 13, 2008 by Brian Butler and John Morelli | Filed under: 1, 2, 3-The Goal of the Environmental Manager
Regarding the topic of the EM’s role in moving us toward sustainability, it is my belief that despite the current goal (s) that a corporate environmental manager may be operating under, for instance, regulatory compliance or helping to reduce the company’s resource use, the ultimate goal is sustainability. I have prepared a document in which I have analyzed several potential goals of the corporate EM and I have shown how each goal can be directly linked to sustainability as THE goal of the profession. It is my claim that for any potential goal that a corporate EM may operate under, sustainability can be derived as the true goal. Therefore, I support the statement that the corporate environmental manager’s goal IS sustainability.
I look forward to discussing this further. Please view my analysis HERE.
Brian,
I think your approach is pretty cool and unique. It certainly does seem to present an obvious trend in the direction of sustainability. However, I would like for us to be precise regarding what we are talking about when we use the term, “sustainability.” Poverty, oppression, war, exploitation of developing economies, etc. seem all to be among the things that need to be addressed before we can achieve what might be described as a condition of “true and full sustainability.” So, I want to suggest that we delineate the boundaries of the portion of “sustainability” that we, as environmental managers, seek to achieve by referring to it as “environmental sustainability.” I also believe that as citizens of the world, we may individually wish to contribute to the broader effort, but that that may be beyond what is appropriate for the profession.
I will post a brief graphical depiction of my thoughts regarding this delineation of profession responsibility.
– John