EVALUATION OF CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL-MANAGEMENT APPROACHES - A FRAMEWORK AND APPLICATION

This article proposes a framework to evaluate corporate environmental strategies. In the proposed framework, a company's environmental risks are analyzed on two dimensions, One dimension, the endogenous environ mental risks, arises from the internal operations of the company. The other dimension, the exogenous environmental risks, are determined by the company's external world: its location, its ecological setting, an d the demographic characteristics of the physical environment in which it operates. Four environmental management approaches are defined as a function of endogenous and exogenous environmental risks: reactive, proactive, strategic, and crisis preventive. The framework was applied in a survey of 141 company representatives in Hungary. A relationship was sought between the a priori defined environmental management appr oaches based on technology and location and the companies' environment al management characteristics defined by senior managers. Variables th at differentiated among the four environmental management approaches w ere identified and ranked. The study concludes that there is a relativ ely well-defined relationship between the environmental risks of compa nies and the nature of their environmental management approaches, Impl ementing a strategic environmental management approach may not be the best option for all companies - although there is a growing pressure t o do so.