Stewardship

A History of Environmental Stewardship

Stewardship of resources through conservation has, since the industrial revolution, fallen largely to governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), often with business interests in vocal and well-funded opposition. The earliest environmental regulations in the United States were enacted to protect the unique beauty of several places in the western United States as national parks. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the U.S. government began to regulate manufacturing waste in an effort to control air and water pollution. The establishment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970 and passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972 and the Air Quality Act in 1967 were intended primarily to regulate industrial pollution. Business groups fought these regulations, citing concerns that compliance would raise costs and limit their profits. Federal and state regulation of particular industries followed. For instance, the federal 1992 Energy Policy Act limited the amount of water that showerheads could deliver to 2.5 gallons per minute. Many states have passed automobile fuel efficiency regulations. More recently, efforts to limit emissions of greenhouse gases remain an active issue in the U.S. Congress.

Increasingly, business leaders understand the degree to which their success depends on the health of ongoing ecosystem services. These leaders look beyond the minimum effort and expense needed to remain in compliance with governmental regulations. They see stewardship of the Earth as their responsibility and manage their businesses accordingly, often with the help of NGOs and self-governed industry groups. Not surprisingly, many businesses also find that environmental stewardship pays off in such areas as stakeholder relations, product and process innovations, cost controls, and employee satisfaction and retention.

Much of what is currently going on in the way of stewardship is a function of proactive voluntary measures, and many of those voluntary measures revolve around standards, [Page 473]certifications, and external audits. For example, Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP) is an independent organization that certifies and audits factories, which may manufacture many different brands, in the apparel and footwear industries. WRAP conducts audits of working conditions, including environmental factors, and certifies factories for a period of six months at a time. The general effectiveness of voluntary stewardship programs is unclear. A 2008 study from George Mason University found that businesses in voluntary environmental programs actually performed more poorly than nonparticipants within the same industries. This was especially pronounced where companies were left to audit themselves rather than being audited by independent external reviewers.

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