Implementation Effectiveness of Corporate Environmental Policies & Strategies

Conservation International (CI) has for many years recognized both the impact private sector development has on global biodiversity and the opportunity companies present to achieving biodiversity conservation results if their resources are properly harnessed. As a result, CI has long engaged with numerous companies to support their development and implementation of environmental best practices, including policies and strategies. Several years into this collaborative approach, little effort has been placed on a formal evaluation of how effectively these policies and strategies are being implemented, and what positive, measurable impact, if any, this has had on achieving biodiversity conservation results. Therefore, this research aims to evaluate a select number of companies in the mining sector with whom CI has worked for several years to determine how effective their environmental policy and strategy implementation has been, and identify any linkages to achieving biodiversity conservation results. Research methods included a review of scholarly literature, comparative company research of four mining companies (Alcoa, BHP Billiton, Newmont, and Rio Tinto), and structured interviews of company and CI representatives.While research concluded that it is too soon to evaluate if CI’s partnerships have lead to biodiversity conservation outcomes, they do appear to have contributed to factors that may enable achievement of outcomes in the longer term. Additionally, while companies have identified performance goals and targets as important components of environmental policies and successful implementation, they have not consistently set them for important environmental issues such as biodiversity, water, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Government capacity was also an issue raised as key to corporate environmental performance. Finally, a lack of existing scholarly work on corporate environmental performance and implementation of environmental policies was identified. This paper presents several recommendations developed to address these key findings.