Greening the networked economy - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 169

environmental movement and multilateral environmental regimes,
transnational companies are increasingly challenged to formulate and
implement one company environmental policy for all its locations,
rather than differentiating environmental performance according to the
local environmental regimes at the place of production. Uniform envi-
ronmental reporting standards, companywide electronic information
and communication systems, certified environmental auditing systems,
common environmental training programs and companywide environ-
mental auditing teams all contribute to that. Our investigations into the
environmental policies and performances of four transnational compa-
nies, each with premises in Amsterdam, Beijing and Sao Paulo, revealed
different degrees of, and policies towards, environmental harmonisa-
tion in these premises (Presas, 2005 ; Presas and Mol, 2006 ).
In these transnational companies, but also in national firms, ICT
plays a major role in various steps in environmental auditing:
(automatic) environmental monitoring; data collection, calculations
and modelling; information handling and transmission; information
reporting and exchange; and information verification. Many consul-
tancy firms have specialised in developing software packages and infor-
mational systems for environmental management in industries and
other private sector business. In most TNCs, continuous data collec-
tion, recording and access is becoming the standard, instead of the
conventional idea of incidental monitoring and measurement of pollu-
tion. Modelling and estimations based on inputs and production sched-
ules increasingly replace actual sampling and laboratory measurement
of waste flows, not unlike that which we identified in state monitor-
ing programs (Chapter 5 ). ICT and the Internet are also dominant
in the production process of these environmental data and reports,
the verification processes, the internal and external distribution, and
the dialogues on environmental data, information and reports within
and outside the company. As Isenmann and Lenz ( 2002 ) have argued,
ICT and Internet use in corporate environmental reporting has four
major benefits. First, the internal and external goals meant by report-
ing can be better addressed (easier reach of the target groups, eas-
ier to bring the corporate identity to the fore, better internal use and
flow of the disclosed information). Second, environmental reporting
becomes more efficient, as the internal reporting procedures and pro-
cesses with respect to preparation, administration, distribution and
presentation can be better handled. Third, the contents of the environ-
mental reports are improved through ICT and Internet use, by - among