1996 Electronics Industry Environmental Roadmap - Civil and ...

Strategic Business Opportunities
environmental issues, and managers with environmental responsibilities have often not factored
in strategic considerations. New analytical methods are being developed. For example,
Townsend (1994) uses computer simulations to conduct sensitivity analysis on the probable
outcomes of different decisions [13]. Grimsted et al. (1994) suggest a method for qualitatively
ranking the environmental risks associated with different sets of hazardous emissions to air,
water, and soil [14]. However, these methods will have to be tested and adapted for each firm’s
specific circumstances.
Alternative, non-financial measures of current and future performance include output quality,
environmental performance, customer satisfaction, and employee training [11]. However, the
various explicit measures of “environmental performance” that have been proposed (and used)
are diverse, often vague, and lack widespread industry acceptance. Clearly, there is a need for
environmental performance benchmarks that can be used for internal and external reports.
2.7 Conclusion
For many years, industry in the United States has advocated voluntary solutions to environmental
concerns, while environmental interest groups and government regulators have chosen instead to
pursue a policy of mandating the responsibilities, actions, and even the approaches of private
business—sometimes even the specific technology to be used. These regulations have typically
been born of legitimate concerns for threats to human health and sensitive ecological systems.
Nonetheless, some regulations have been ill-conceived and politically motivated, thereby
creating significant administrative inefficiencies, raising the cost of doing business, and
threatening the international competitiveness of U.S. industry.
Some representatives in Congress are promoting a different philosophy of government
regulation. The Administration and the U.S. House of Representatives support requiring costbenefit
analysis of new federal rules. At the same time, there have been federal, state, and local
government initiatives to eliminate unfunded federal mandates and to reassert local control over a
wide variety of matters ranging from transportation policy to education to the environment.
These changes, if they succeed, will have a profound impact on industry’s environmental strategy
and management practices.
The potential for a decrease in regulatory action at the Federal level, and indications that similar
philosophies may be guiding state and local policy-makers, gives industry an opportunity to
demonstrate the viability and value of performance-oriented initiatives. However, industry must
define the scope and nature of these voluntary efforts—seizing the initiative and forming a
framework for individual company action and industry collaboration that will prevent pollution,
improve process efficiency, and ultimately improve cost structures while at the same time
maintaining product quality. Through these actions, industry also has the opportunity to “reinvent”
itself in the eyes of many who have otherwise been adversaries. At the international
level, competitive pressures in the global marketplace will require firms to develop universallyapplied
standards of care.
The time is at hand for industry to assertively communicate the message that performanceoriented
efforts do work, and that industry is capable of sustaining effective environmental
management. By taking the lead, industry can increase the probability that this regulatory
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