Resource information
Environmental and social responsibility
is becoming more and more important in today’s global
economy. There are thousands of environmental and social
codes and standards in the world today. The codes and
standards define the rules and the objectives. But the
challenge is in the implementation. An environmental and
social management system (ESMS) helps companies to integrate
the rules and objectives into core business operations,
through a set of clearly defined, repeatable processes. This
Handbook is intended to be a practical guide to help
companies develop and implement an environmental and social
management system, which should help to improve overall
operations. In the current economic climate, companies are
under pressure to perform or even just survive. New
initiatives are often met with resistance as people struggle
to keep up with their day-to-day responsibilities. Some
people think that an environmental and social management
system must be big, complicated and expensive. But that is
not really true. To be effective, a management system needs
to be scaled to the nature and size of the company.
