Environmental risks and impacts - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 198

Figure 8.2 Conceptual model for managing environmental risks and impacts.
adaptive management based on the input from successively detailed monitoring. The
right conceptual model helps to select the right scope and scenario and ensures a flexible
frame for environmental risk management.
2 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT AT COMPANY LEVEL
Until the 1990s, economic stakeholders considered environmental problems as a threat
which would increase their costs and limit their freedom of activity. Therefore, a strug-
gle with and hostility toward authorities and civil groups characterized companies'
responses during this period. This struggle continues even today in a “civilized'' form.
Initially, companies made provisions for environmental protection only to the extent
law and civil groups' pressure forced them to. But today, the situation has changed;
some companies have recognized the opportunities in the innovations initiated by envi-
ronmental protection, as well as the advantages coming from a better social judgment
with regard to their environment friendly activities (Zöldi, 2009).
International experience shows that the favorable environmental attitude of a com-
pany's management is beneficial not only for the natural and man-made environment
but it is also profitable for the company.
The mitigation of the consequences of past environmental disasters is certainly
expensive but the future effects of current positive environmental behavior are not a
cost but an income generating factor. The primary task of environmental management
is the cost-effective handling of environmental challenges.