The evolution of environmental management within organizations: Toward a common taxonomy

Abstract

In this article, we propose a taxonomy for organizational approaches to envi- ronmental manage- ment. We suggest the following three evolutionary stages, based on the degree to which the envi- ronmental variable is integrated within organizations: functional specialization, internal integration, and external (or strategic) integration. These stages tend to fol- low the evolution of the organization’s overall configuration, as well as the development of its human resource and production management areas. The approach proposed in this article is based on our review of several environmental manage- ment taxonomies described in the technical liter- ature. Although these various taxonomies differ in some ways, their characterizations of environ- mental management evolution contain similari- ties that allow them to be combined into a single system.  The proposed approach allows ex- perts involved in decision making to comprehend the current maturity level of a company’s environmental management pro- gram and the efforts needed to achieve superior performance. This article begins with some background dis- cussion and moves on to a review of the pertinent literature. We then present our proposed com- mon taxonomy.