The Green Onion: a corporate environmental strategy framework

Abstract Since the 1990s, there has been a proliferation of research exploring the benefits of proactive corporate environmental management initiatives. Unfortunately, the absence of a comprehensive, strategic planning framework relegates much of this valuable research to a study of good ideas for making money while operating more sustainably. This paper presents a framework for guiding corporate environmental strategy to bring order to existing observations and allow social scientists to begin the process of ‘orderly control and prediction’. The research is based on modified grounded theory and an extensive literature review pertaining to the benefits of corporate environmental management. The framework has been named the ‘Green Onion’ to highlight the multiple strategic layers of influence uncovered and the importance of retaining resilient outer layers (i.e., stakeholder management) to protect the highly potent core of functional environmental management initiatives (i.e., cost saving initiatives). Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.