"Implementing an Environmental Audit: How to Gain a Competitive Advantage
Using Quality and Environmental Responsibility", by Grant Ledgerwood,
Elizabeth Street, and Riki Therivel, published by IRWIN Professional
Publishing (1333 Burr Ridge Parkway Burr Ridge, IL 60521), 1994, 212 pp, $45
list
 
A Book Review by Norman C. Frank, PE, CQE, CQA
CER Corporation, Washington, DC
 
"Implementing an Environmental Audit" doesn't.  If you expect to learn what
an environmental audit is and how to perform one, you will be sorely
disappointed in this book.  It's main focus is on motivating management to
become "deep green" by focusing on a corporate environmental program.  The
book has the proper "alarmist tone" and follows the classic format for
environmental books and articles of (1) sound the alarm, (2) explain how the
authors' way is the only proper way to eliminate the problem, and (3) end
with the exhortation that if you do what we say, your company will be
liberated and paradise will be yours.
 
The authors try to use Total Quality Management (TQM) as the method of
introducing the environmental strategy into the corporation and include the
statement, "In general, senior management must learn to ask more from their
managers and operatives."  This coupled with the moralizing, stick it to the
rich, and semi-disguised socialist opinions of the authors makes the book
useable only to those who are already heavily into the emotional side of the
environmental movement, not the action side.  Opinionated adjectives and
adverbs dot the text and make it a minefield of "snarl" words (e.g., plastics
are referred to as "polluting plastics" while green pressure groups
"articulately suggest").  The authors make many statements about the
customer, yet have no reference to support the statements.  The authors
state, "Environmental auditing is closely linked to Total Quality Management
in its emphasis on the management structures and processes by which
environmental outcomes are achieved."  Some people might take exception to
this.
 
The authors have nothing but praise for "The Body Shop" throughout the book,
yet repeat dubious rumors concerning other companies and use old data to
imply that other companies are not living up to their standards.  The British
Standard BS7750 is used as the basis for how to approach an environmental
audit, yet the authors promulgate the error that ISO stands for
"International Standards Organization" (it doesn't).
 
The good points about the book are that if you can get through the hype and
separate the wheat from the chaff, you can learn about the need for a
corporate environmental program and gain some insight on how to approach
developing one for your company.
 
Only recommended for CEOs and top managers.