Survey Questionnaire on Environmental Management Practices: Summary of Results by Industry and Practices

Magali  Delmas; Michael W. Toffel

Report | 2008

Survey Questionnaire on Environmental Management Practices: Summary of Results by Industry and Practices

Abstract

This document provides a summary of the results of a survey on Environmental Management Practices (EMP) conducted by the University of California at Santa Barbara during October and November 2003. The survey was sent to 3255 facilities in 8 industrial sectors: pulp, paper and paperboard mills, chemical and allied products, refining, primary metals, machinery, electronics/electrical, automotive, and utilities. The survey yielded 562 responses, which constitutes a 17.2% response rate. This summary includes a general description of the sample, a profile of the respondents, and summary statistics of facilities' environmental management practices, relations with stakeholders, and environmental performance measures. In addition, we report the factors that respondents noted were influencing them to improve their environmental performance and adopt particular environmental management practices. In many cases, these results are categorized by industry to facilitate comparisons. The environmental management practices we inquired about include the adoption of an environmental policy and its communication, the number of internal and external audits performed at the facility, the proportion of employees in various departments receiving environmental training, "green purchasing" policies, the adoption of the ISO 14001 international standard, participation in industry and governments voluntary programs, and solicitation of opinions from environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Overall, we identified important differences between industrial sectors in terms of the level of adoption of these environmental management practices. Companies can employ these survey results to benchmark their practices to facilities in their own industry as well as to other industries. In addition, government, NGOs, and local communities can employ this information to learn the prevalence of different environmental management practices across various industries, and to better understand how firms are motivated—and influenced—to adopt environmental management practices.

Keywords: Economic Sectors; Surveys; Management Practices and Processes; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Non-Governmental Organizations;

Language: English

Format: Print

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Citation:

Delmas, Magali, and Michael W. Toffel. "Survey Questionnaire on Environmental Management Practices: Summary of Results by Industry and Practices." Report, 2008. (2008. University of California, Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research.)

Article | ILR Review | August 2020

Improving Working Conditions in Global Supply Chains: The Role of Institutional Environments and Monitoring Program Design

Jodi L. Short, Michael W. Toffel and Andrea R. Hugill

Activism seeking to improve labor conditions in global supply chains has led many transnational corporations to adopt codes of conduct and monitor suppliers for compliance. Drawing on thousands of audits conducted by a major social auditor, we identify structural contingencies in the institutional environment and program design under which codes and monitoring are more likely to be associated with improvements in conditions. At the institutional level, suppliers improve more when they face greater risk that NGOs and the press will expose harmful working conditions and when their buyers have experienced negative publicity for supply chain labor abuses. At the program design level, suppliers improve more on average when audits are pre-announced, when auditors are highly trained, and especially when both are true. However, extended analysis reveals nuances to these findings, demonstrating that improvement varies across violation types. For instance, we find that pre-announced audits were followed by greater improvement in OSH practices but not child labor practices. These findings can inform strategies for improving supply chain working conditions.

Keywords: Monitoring; supplier relationship; sustainability; Sustainability Management; Sustainable Operations; sustainable supply chains; NGO; Operations; Supply Chain Management; Governance Compliance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Global Range; Working Conditions;

Citation:

Short, Jodi L., Michael W. Toffel, and Andrea R. Hugill. "Improving Working Conditions in Global Supply Chains: The Role of Institutional Environments and Monitoring Program Design." ILR Review 73, no. 4 (August 2020): 873–912. View Details

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Survey Questionnaire on Environmental Management Practices: Summary of Results by Industry and Practices

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