Smarter Business: Greening Advisor

An organization-wide environmental policy

Many corporations have established organization-wide environmental policies to define and advance their environmental goals. An environmental policy sends a clear message to employees, vendors, and the community at large that your company considers environmentally intelligent practices an organizational priority. When a company adopts such a policy, it’s a meaningful first step in any effort to improve environmental performance. Consider implementing your own environmental policy based on the sample statement below.

Sample Environmental Policy Statement

Human activity can have harmful effects on ecological systems, climate and public health. Recognizing this, we are committed to reducing our environmental footprint and promoting environmental stewardship at all levels of our organization. Our goal is to minimize our organization’s impact and maximize future generations’ ability to live, work, and play in our shared natural environment, with equal access to clean air, clean water, and natural resources.

We will strive to identify and purchase environmentally preferable supplies and services for all our daily operational needs and for company events where economically feasible. Wherever possible we will strive to minimize pollution and waste, conserve energy and water, protect habitat, support renewable energy resources, buy environmentally friendly products, and encourage environmentally preferable transportation.

These efforts will extend to contractor and supplier relationships. We will encourage contractors and suppliers serving or otherwise acting on behalf of the organization to meet our standards of environmental performance.

Employee understanding and involvement are essential to the implementation of this environmental policy. All employees will receive a copy of this policy and be educated about our company’s efforts to improve our environmental performance. Employees at all levels of the company will be involved in supporting our goals.

A healthy environment benefits everyone, and our commitment to environmental stewardship will be a long-term one.

Examples of Corporate Environmental Policies

• IBM
• Disney
• Hewlett-Packard
• JPMorgan
• Verizon
• Goldman Sachs