Between Incentive and Obstacle: Environmental Legislation and Its Impacts on Organizational Sustainability – A Systematized Literature Review

This research evaluates, through a systematized literature review, the main aspects of Brazilian environmental legislation that simultaneously function as instruments for promoting sustainability and as barriers to organizational competitiveness. The central problem investigated consists of analyzing how Brazilian environmental legislation acts simultaneously as an instrument for promoting sustainability and as a barrier to organizational competitiveness, especially in the national corporate context. The study aimed to examine the dual effects of legislation on innovation, competitiveness, and organizational ethics, investigating how regulations can promote sustainable development or limit business activities. Methodologically, this was a bibliographic study, based on a systematized literature review in databases such as SciELO, CAPES, and Google Scholar, with texts selected according to criteria of relevance, recency, and theoretical consistency. The results indicate that legal instruments such as the National Environmental Policy (Law No. 6,938/1981), the National Solid Waste Policy (Law No. 12,305/2010), and CONAMA resolutions have contributed to strengthening environmental governance, disseminating reverse logistics, and encouraging the pursuit of environmental certifications. However, challenges related to bureaucracy, legal uncertainty, and high compliance costs persist, hindering the effective internalization of a sustainability culture. Thus, although legislation is essential for ecological preservation, it has an ambivalent nature that requires greater integration with inclusive public policies and ethical and innovative business strategies.