Environmental Reporting in a Total Quality Management Framework: A Primer

At the June 1993 GEMI annual meeting, GEMI formally recognized the importance of accurate corporate environmental reporting and established a special work group to study this critical issue. In turn, the work group determined that an environmental reporting project was a necessary component of the group’s overall strategic plan.

GEMI was an early support of the 16 principles of set forth by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in its Business Charter for Sustainable Development. Principle 16 focused directly on environmental reporting. The ICC Charter clearly recognizes what many companies continue to discover on their own: measurement and reporting are fundamental components of sound environmental management – and that the internal reporting of environmental progress and compliance is inextricably intertwined with the development of environmental performance reports for various external stakeholders.

Environmental Reporting in a Total Quality Management Framework: A Primer draws on the environmental reporting experiences of GEMI member companies and reflects GEMI’s interest in apply Total Quality Management tools – including measuring and reporting – to improve corporate environmental performance around the globe.

The Primer is organized into four chapters:

• Chapter 1 is an introduction to the primer
• Chapter 2 outlines the basic TQEM framework many companies rely on for effective and efficient internal environmental reporting
• Chapter 3 examines the external environmental reporting process as a logical extension of the internal reporting program.
• Chapter 4 summarizes the key findings of the primer and contains a directly of additional resources.