Environmental Strategy: Definition, stakes and tools

Environmental strategy is to corporate strategy what environmental management is to management. Both are in line with the need to take into account the environmental consequences of corporate activities. The adoption of the concept of sustainable development at the Rio Conference in 1992 amplified the phenomenon, elevating environmental protection to the status of a must. Since any value added to a good or service generates waste, no company can claim to operate without generating a minimum of environmental pressure. It is on these impacts that a company's environmental strategy will focus.

As an integral part of corporate strategy, environmental strategy focuses on the strategic options that will ensure the development of activities while minimizing their impact on the environment. Although compliance with environmental legislation and regulations has long forced organizations to limit the pressures they exert on the natural environment, integrating the environmental variable into corporate strategy is not necessarily self-evident. It will call into question the scale of its priorities. This variable must therefore be taken into account right from the development strategy stage, as it will require the company to define specific strategic orientations that will inevitably have repercussions on its decision-making processes and practices. What's more, adopting an environmental strategy means mobilizing and harnessing new tools and instruments that are essential to the pursuit of the company's objectives.

But before getting down to implementation, the key question any company must answer is what type of environmental strategy to choose from the very wide range of possible strategies. The choice will take into account a number of considerations which will weigh differently depending on the company concerned.

The aim of this article is to provide some answers, so as to guide companies towards the environmental strategy best suited to their own characteristics and to the internal and external context in which they operate, as well as to the degree of priority they attach to the environment. The second part of the article presents the main tools for implementing the chosen strategy in practice, and highlights the most appropriate moment for optimal use of each tool. Before concluding, we will point out the errors to be avoided if we are to avoid undermining the company's strategic commitment.