1996 Electronics Industry Environmental Roadmap - Civil and ...

Strategic Business Opportunities
Goodrich is currently introducing new performance indicators based on product
design. They want to add additional cost information to this list, but boundary
uncertainties about which costs to consider need to be resolved. Currently, they
do not measure the recycled content of inputs; although they are gradually
implementing a Design for Environment program.
Additionally, the six “Codes of Practice” in the Chemical Manufacturer’s
Association Responsible Care® Program are measured and reported to CMA
annually (as required of member organizations). Furthermore, Goodrich has
extended the Responsible Care® practices to their aerospace businesses. In the
chemical business, Responsible Care® is motivated by concerns about product
stewardship; in the aerospace business, it is motivated by value-added concerns.
This highlights the fact that the business groups are both accountable and
responsible for their environmental performance. General managers are required
to fit environmental goals into their overall objectives and to ensure that adequate
resources exist to meet these goals. The environmental professional is responsible
for identifying requirements that make up the goals and for providing assistance to
the businesses in achieving their responsibilities. Because of this, Goodrich does
not need a large environmental staff; rather, their environmental professionals
have broad expertise in planning and business processes, as well as environmental
technology.
Goodrich’s vice president hopes that all parties—industry, government, and environmental
non-governmental organizations—analyze the possible future states of
the world and consider what course of history, regulation, and voluntary actions
will most smoothly get us to that point. “Using 20-20 hindsight hasn’t worked all
that well for us; hopefully, we can use 20-20 foresight to get us efficiently to our
desired goals.”
2.3 Standards Providing Guidance for Strategic Decision-making
Society and corporate boards have increasingly higher expectations for corporate environmental
performance. These expectations are manifested in the following six initiatives: the CERES
principles, the Responsible Care® Program, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)
Business Charter’s Environmental Management Principles, the British Standards Institution
(BSI) Standard BS7750, the European Community Eco-Management and Audit Regulation
(EMAR), and—especially—the ISO 14000 series of environmental management standards.
The CERES principles were one of the first international initiatives that addressed corporate
environmental performance. The Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies
(CERES) is a non-profit organization whose members include the National Audubon Society,
National Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, Social Investment Forum, Interfaith Center on
Corporate Responsibility, U.S. PIRG, and the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Department. CERES
developed the “CERES Principles” (listed in Appendix B) in March 1989 in response to the
13