In the industry and in the workplace [1, 2, 3]

In the Industry:
Unlike professionals working in some of the more competitive functions of business, environmental managers have, to a significant degree, been less encumbered than others with respect to freedom to share information. While this phenomenon occurs across industry boundaries, a considerable amount of such interaction does, in fact, occur among different companies within a single industry. A good portion of this interaction occurs on an informal basis prompted by a telephone call or an e-mail message. Some of it, however, finds a forum for such exchanges within industry-specific associations, at conferences, or other organized events. Since there are likely to be common challenges facing environmental managers working in companies within the same industry, the collective wisdom of this group of individuals becomes an invaluable resource to all. Environmental managers working in other industries or situations may also find value in the good environmental management practices of a specific industry.

The questions we want to ask and answer here are:
• To what extent should the professional environmental manager share information regarding best practices?
• What should be the expectations of the profession regarding the responsibility of the environmental manager to initiate, if necessary, and/or contribute to establishing a “good practices” database or resource for the industry in which s/he is employed?

In the Workplace:
One might ask the question, “Who defines the role and responsibilities of the environmental manager in the workplace?” Let’s try to expand on that by first examining some other professions like doctors and engineers. Both require specialized training and both are licensed. Because of this training and licensing, these professionals are expected to bring with them into the workplace the standards of practice generally accepted by the profession. They may have different responsibilities assigned to them within the organizations in which they work, but there is an understanding that the basic tenets of their professions will or should remain inviolate. The environmental management profession, in contrast, is made up of individuals with a wide range of academic and experiential backgrounds, including, but certainly not limited to: civil, chemical, and environmental engineers; chemists, biologists, geologists, and environmental scientists; lawyers, financial managers, human resource directors, operations managers, and relatively small but hopefully increasing number of individuals who were actually prepared as environmental managers. Individuals without formal preparation as environmental managers are thus often unprepared to bring generally accepted practices and expectations to the job. Their roles the organization tend to be defined to a greater degree by the organization than might be the case with a doctor or engineer. Additionally, when individuals who, in fact, have been prepared as environmental managers are hired to serve in that role in a company, particularly a smaller company in which such an individual might be the only environmental professional in the organization, these individuals often face an uphill battle when trying to explain why it might be appropriate for the company to take a particular action to protect the environment — in short, when trying to do their jobs.

The questions we want to ask and answer here are:
• To what extent should the role of the environmental manager be defined by the profession?
• Which specific elements of our job constitute “professional practice?”

Posts in In the industry and in the workplace [1, 2, 3]: