INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS AND CORPORATE-POLICIES - AN INTEGRATIVE FRAMEWORK

Corporations engaged in international business face increasingly compl ex challenges in preparing environmental management policies for their plants or sites in different operating environments. Rapidly evolving international standards such as ISO 14000 encourage corporations to c ertify their environmental management systems, but leave them broad di scretion in formulating environmental policies. Certification of corpo rate environmental policies and management systems, however, may not b e adequate for companies with plants that use different technologies a nd production processes or that are located at sites with different en vironmental characteristics. This article proposes a framework that ca n help international corporations develop tailored environmental polic ies for their plants based on their environmental risks.