BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, VOL.

6, 197205 (1997)

ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGERS'
VIEWS ON ENVIRONMENTAL
WORK IN A BUSINESS
CONTEXT
Bino Catasus*, Maths Lundgren and Hans Rynnel
School of Business, Stockholm University, Sweden

This study considers environmental

managers' views on environmental work.
The paper initiates a general and critical
discussion of the role and situation of the
environmental manager who, as can be
argued, has to consider demands from
three directions i.e. internal demands,
external demands and nature's demands.
This triangular focus constitutes the frame
of reference of this qualitative, descriptive
study. It is suggested that environmental
managers must be understood as managers
in a business context. # 1997 John Wiley &
Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Bus. Strat. Env, Vol. 6, 197205 (1997)
No. of Figures: 0. No. of Tables: 0.
No. of References: 31.
INTRODUCTION AND AIM

n literature concerned with environmental

issues and organizations, relatively much
covers environmental management, but little
has been devoted to the environmental manager
(Andersson and Wolff, 1996). Albeit a young profession, it is starting off in an impressive manner.
Most large companies have an environmental
manager. One can for example nd university
* Correspondence to: Bino Catasus, School of Business, Stockholm University, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
CCC 0964-4733/97/04019709 $17.50
# 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

courses on environmental management and consulting rms that specialize in environmental

management. All of this reects a major upgrading
of the trade (see for example Tomorrow No 4, 1995).
Not only has the status of the environmental
manager been upgraded, it has also been developed
to represent something beyond the postulate of
short-term prot-maximization. The environmental
manager is the societal conscience of the organization. An example of this is the code of conduct
presented in `The Environmental Managers' Charter.'1 In this charter the role of the environmental
manager is presented as one that demands rigorous
conduct. The reason, it is argued, is that any error
made by the environmental manager may have
serious and irreversible consequences for not only
an organization, but also for society and for the
environment. The environmental manager is
accountable not only within the organization, but
also to external stakeholders and to nature itself.
This implies that the environmental manager, more
than others, should `listen' to nature. Nature is
silent, but it is within the responsibilities of the
environmental managers to nd ways of giving
expression to the speechless nature. This is well in
line with the ideas dominating the literature. Welford (1995:4) argues that rms have to make a real
commitment to environmental issues. The environmental manager must thus be in the front line of
what Welford calls the `creative ideology' and work
towards economic and societal change. The same
ideas can be found in much of the environmental
management literature where the need for a paradigm of sustainable development is asserted in the
beginning of books on this subject. This `chapterone rationale' can be found in for example Hop1

Http:==www.iem.org.uk/documents/texts/charter.html (Monday 23 September 1996).

BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

 S, MATHS LUNDGREN AND HANS RYNNEL

BINO CATASU
fenbeck (1993), Hawken (1993), and Welford (1995).
A not uncommon ideological approach is that:
`without green business there cannot be green
economy and without green economy there is no
future for mankind.' This brave-new-world argument is not the only one presented. Actually, the
most common decoy is that of protability. Often,
the reasoning goes like this: `If managers do not
engage in environmental issues they will lose on
both sides of the prot and loss account. Opportunities to sell more will be lost and chances to lower
costs will not be taken advantage of.' The picture
of the environmental manager drawn from the
literature is that of a manager with one foot in a
normative ideology and the other foot in the pragmatics of business. The description above indicates
that environmental management is something
beyond traditional management. The role of the
environmental manager is special: an ombudsman
for the environment as well as a manager in an
organization. Its success demands attention to both
external and internal stakeholders. This was also
our pre-understanding.
The aim of this paper is to initiate a general and
critical discussion of the role and situation of the
environmental manager. First, we present our
choice of method and discuss the implications of
that choice. In the following section, we discuss
some of the emerging patterns regarding ways in
which environmental managers view their work.
This section is a description and an interpretation of
the environmental manager's view on environmental work. Furthermore, it became clear that the
context in which an environmental manager operates is primarily the business context. The next section therefore consists of a discussion on the context
of the environmental manager. Finally, some contributions and further reections are presented and
discussed in a critical manner.

FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEWA

QUALITATIVE APPROACH
This paper is based on a qualitative, descriptive
study. Qualitative studies focus on questions such
as `how' and `why', not `how many' or `how often'
(Yin, 1989). The empirical basis is how a number of
environmental managers interpret their own situations; in other words, what are their professional
subjective perspective(s). The method and the
sample (discussed in some detail below) make it
possible to develop concepts and ideas for use in
interpreting the work context of environmental
Bus. Strat. Env, Vol. 6, 197205 (1997)

198

managers. However, the method applied does not

aim at developing generalizable patterns. Rather, by
highlighting environmental managers' views of
their own situations, this qualitative study provides
insight into the particular rather than the general.
Thus, the limitation of the study is that the ndings
cannot be generalized to other settings without
further considerations. The interviews with the
environmental managers were carried out as a focus
group interview (cf. Seymour, 1988). The technique
is to bring together a relatively homogeneous group
to discuss matters which, in this case, the participants have close to their professional hearts. With
this kind of method we gain an opportunity to
create group dynamics among the participants and
the researchers and, hopefully, to nd out more, not
only about how the managers view their professional situations, but also why they adopt these
views. A fruitful focus group interview has some
kinship with a constructive and creative expert
seminar where the participants are willing to contribute. Using this method has helped us to generate
themes based on our interpretations of the group
interview and from this construct a pattern (Law,
1994). These themes are, then, screened using our
analytical framework (see below) and also affected
by what Czarniawska-Joerges (1992a:23) calls the
`third voice'. The third voice is our own subjective
view and interpretation of the text which is inuenced by people no longer discernible from the `text
of life' (ibid.).
The sample was managed in the sense that we
invited representatives from different lines of
industry covering consumer and industrial goods,
nancial services, and the public sector. By doing
this, we obtained a fair breadth in the selection, and
we avoided participants who might be in direct
competition with each other. The group consisted of
six managers. The interview took place at a conference facility situated in the archipelago of
Stockholm. It was done in connection with a twoday conference arranged by the Swedish Association of Environmental Managers.2 During the group
interview one of us functioned as the group interview moderator (cf. Seymour, 1988). The moderator's task was to encourage the environmental
managers to respond by asking uncompleted
2

The Swedish Association of Environmental Managers [Naringslivets Miljochefer, NMC] is a network with approximately
100 members. The aim of the organization is to `contribute to the
development of competence in environmental issues and to play
an active part in the public debate concerning environmental
issues.' Among the participating rms we found internationally
well-known companies such as ABB, Ericsson, Volvo and Tetra
Pak.
# 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

ENVIRONMENTAL WORK IN A BUSINESS CONTEXT

questions starting with `if.' Our intention was to
expand the discussion into somewhat wider circles.
The discussion was not only based on our explicit
questions; in fact, most of the time the statements
emerged through spontaneous interaction among
the participants. The focus group interviewwhich
was video-recorded lasted for two hours and was
later transformed into a transcript. The quotations
in this paper have been translated into English by
the authors.

SKETCHING AN ANALYTICAL
FRAMEWORK
Before the focus group interview took place we
sketched out an analytical framework. Environmental managers have to attend to demands from
within the company as well as outside the company.
An organization is dependent on external resources
and has to consider the demands of various stakeholders (cf. Cyert and March, 1963; Rhenman, 1969;
Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978). However, one part of the
external demands is distinct for the environmental
manager: the requirements dictated by nature. This is
in line with the arguments of Wanden (1992): in
ethics, there have traditionally been two interests to
be balanced; the interests of the individual and the
interests of society. The emergence of environmental
protection has, according to Wanden, brought along
a third pole: nature. Whereas nature is seen as a
whole by those who embrace this ethic, society and
the individual (i.e. the individual organization) are to
be seen as parts of the whole. Thus, translated into
our analytical framework, the environmental manager has to consider demands from three directions
or, more metaphorically, has to listen to and interpret
three voices, i.e. (a) internal demands, (b) external
demands and (c) nature's demands:
(a) Internal demands are characterized by the
activities and behavior of an organization's own
agents. The environmental manager needs to handle not only the environment but also such things as
cost reductions, the desired level of protability,
product quality, strategies, leadership, etc. These
requirements are rarely unanimous. They may
range from those of efciency at a traditional business level (which, per se, is not easy to single out) to
personal goals and competing claims based on
individually held ideologies and wishes, rarely
expressed explicitly but appearing as constraints
and hidden agendas.
(b) External demands are seen as demands
directed from others. Acquiring resources means
# 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

that an organization must interact with others who

control resources (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978:147).
Resources in this sense means not only physical,
human and nancial resources, but also resources
such as legitimacy or lack of mistrust (ibid.).
Examples of sources of such demands could be
customers, suppliers, authorities, NGOs, etc. All of
these stakeholders do in some way or another affect
an organization's ability to attract resources.
(c) Nature's demands are restrictions determined
by the laws of thermodynamics, the primary functions of nature, ecological services, etc. (see e.g. de
Groot, 1992; Costanza, 1991). Whereas it is possible
to negotiate with external stakeholders, this is not
true when it comes to nature's demands. The natural environment has no voice of its own. Here, we
pursue the ontological position that nature is not a
matter for argument. Yet it is not possible to disregard the argument raised by Niels Bohr; `physics
is not what nature is, but what we can say to each
other.' Consequently, there is an everlasting discussion about the demands nature puts on us,
which natural laws we have to obey, etc. Because
nature does not speak for itself, its imagined voice
has to be interpreted by scientists and others
according to an innite number of variations in
terms of instrumental or intrinsic value, sensitivity,
assimilation capacity, etc.
In conclusion, the triangularity model is a simplication. It is a schema, a platform from which a
discussion on these issues can be held. The distinction between external and internal demands is
far from clear. For example, it is not uncommon for
the production manager to view both the customers
and the marketing department as one external
stakeholder. Likewise, the demands of owners are
often regarded as external. From our point of view,
however, it is not of fundamental importance to
dene every stakeholder; what is important is to
point out nature as such.

FOUR EMERGING PATTERNS

While reading the transcript and viewing the
videotape, four categories emerged which are of
central interest in understanding the environmental
manager. The managers' statements mainly
revolved around internal demands. The rst two
headings below present their internal worries. The
third category describes the external demands
mentioned by the environmental managers and the
fourth covers the demands of nature.
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 S, MATHS LUNDGREN AND HANS RYNNEL

BINO CATASU
Re-labelling the environment
The managerial discourse in organizations contains
concepts like costs, revenues, effectiveness, efciency and control, etc. The discourse of the
sustainable rm has other concepts such as ecoefciency, environmental accountability and life
cycle analysis. The environmental manager needs to
be both artful and resourceful enough to be able to
consider the two discourses. One way of doing this
is by re-labelling environmental work and tting it
into the business context. Internally, this primarily
affects costs, and cost reductions are seldom
appreciated in organizations.
Still, much of managers' work involves paying
attention to costs. One of the environmental managers in the study said: `Today, there are companies
that have had projects with the purpose of reducing costs,
but have dressed them up in environmental terms. By
doing this [the management] got support from the
personnel.'
By re-labelling cost reductions and calling them
`work on environmental issues,' an organization
may succeed in two ways. First, those below managerial level seem to be enthusiastic about contributing to a more sustainable world. Second, the
cost reductions are carried out without bad feelings.
Generally speaking, the environmental manager
needs to use a different strategy towards colleagues
in the managerial guild. The managers emphasized
that the enthusiasm often found at the grass-roots
level cannot be mobilized as easily among other
managers. For example, in order to get the controller to pay attention to environmental issues, they
often must be expressed in monetary terms. Even
though the environmental managers in our study
did not strongly endorse the translation of nature
into monetary values, many of them agreed that the
monetary argument is powerful. They argued that if
the middle and top management can be served with
arguments in monetary terms, showing how efciently work on environmental issues is, then more
work on environmental issues can be done. However, one environmental manager asked the rhetorical question of why the controller did not
investigate the potential cost reduction of reducing
waste. The environmental manager said that there
was money to be made, but it seemed that `managers
concerned with nancial issues do not think that waste is
sexy enough.'
It was mentioned that, in certain cases, issues
which had long been recommended, but never
implemented, now seem to nd that extra argument
which will lead to change. One such concrete
example was the changeover from paper forms to
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electronically based and computer-stored forms in

the insurance industry. This has been a vision in
many rms for years but it has still not been generally introduced; ofces are still drowning in loads
of paper. The pro-environment argument, along
with all the previous arguments, has tremendously
speeded up that process in a participant company.
In the light of this, one environmental manager
pointed out that `the environmental manager can be of
great help to the CEO.' One environmental manager
in our study mentioned that everything done in the
R&D department could be labelled as environmental improvement. That is, investments which
would have been done anyway, can be categorized
under the heading of `environmental investments,'
thus providing a potential attracter of goodwill for
the environmental report.
In sum, the re-labelling is done in several ways:
1. Justifying cost reductions by calling them
environmental related.
2. Re-labelling work on environmental issues as
cost reductions.
3. Using the environmental imperative as `that
extra argument' to justify investments and projects.
4. Categorizing traditional investments which
would have been done anyway as environmental investments.
Integration as a buzzword
The environmental managers brought up and
talked at length about circumstances which were
connected with integration ambitions. It was said
that the overall objective is to reach a state of affairs
where every decision is permeated by an environmental element, as a `natural part of the daily decision
making.' The environmental managers talked about
two different aspects of environmental integration:
language and action. The environmental managers
stressed the importance of a top management with
vision in these matters. In order to make `something
happen', the CEO must incorporate the environmental perspective in the strategic perspective `use
the word environment' and talk about it continually in
order to indicate the route to be taken by the rest of
the organization. `The middle managers need courage
to start integrating environmental issues into their area
of responsibility,' it was said. At the same time the
managers argued that talking is not enough, and
that in order to achieve prolonged change, talk must
result in action. The importance of action was
emphasized by one of the environmental managers
as follows: `Everybody can't run around with visions in
# 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

ENVIRONMENTAL WORK IN A BUSINESS CONTEXT

their heads, because then things get spaced out, . . .
[environmental issues] must come down to something
manageable and planned, and then it's like anything else
at work.' Furthermore, they used expressions like `to
imprint' and `green programming', when referring to
the process of changing the attitudes and behaviour
of individuals in their organizations.
One environmental manager even argued that the
main mission should be to abolish the need for the
position of an environmental manager in the rst
place, i.e. that green aspects should become so
integrated into all areas that there will be no particular need for somebody to attend to the environment. However, one manager stressed that even if
the environmental perspective becomes integrated
in the business discourse, environmental managers
will still be needed. Another manager lled in:
`Maybe, today's environmental managers will be the
marketing managers of tomorrow.'

Communication and external demand

External demands very much boiled down to a
matter of communication in the eyes of the environmental managers. The discussion regarding
communication covered two parts; (a) communicating the efforts made on environmental issues
by the company, and (b) interpreting and responding to demands imposed by legislators and/or
consumers.
(a) Part of the discussion covered the extent to
which environmental efforts were made visible to
the external stakeholders.3 The focus was on communicating the whole company's efforts, not individual products. The managers in our study saw a
discrepancy between what is actually achieved and
the view among the general public and the media.
The reason is the risk of pitfalls. If the company
decides to communicate successful work on environmental issues, the journalists will immediately
point at those things not done.
Thus, taken together, the risk of communicating
progress is often too great. The environmental
managers are afraid that they will be thrown `out of
the frying pan and into the re' if they communicate
excellence. One manager spoke up (with emphasis):
`I know we have done a lot of good things, but I also know
3

One plausible reason for the attention paid to this issue was the
fact that the secretary-general of the Swedish Society for Nature
Conservation [Naturskyddsforeningen] held a speech one hour
before the group interview. He opined that the public at large,
including the Society's own members, do not realize how
proactive many companies really are due to their lack of communication about these matters.
# 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

that we have several problems remaining at one of our

sites. That's the problem!' Another manager continued: `We don't take advantage of our up-front positionand I think that we should.' One environmental
manager stated that rms decide for themselves
how far ahead they want to be in terms of environmental communication. The manager emphasized that a return on investment is always
requiredincluding in environmental areas. If the
monetary income is not sufcient to make the
investment protable, the goodwill gained by
communicating the efforts can make up for the
difference.
(b) When asked if the demands of the legislators
are a source of pressure the answer was: `No, the
legislation is not the problem. We are ahead; today it is
clearly market driven.' This was further triggered by a
worry: `What happens the day that the customers do not
request environmental efforts? Will the driving force fade
away then?' One manager replied: `Well, that day we
will be pushed forward by the lawmakers.' Also, there
was a discussion of the importance of international
regulations. Here, some hope was put on the European Community. Industry, it was said, needs to
compete under equal conditions. The need for a
continuous dialogue with consumers was emphasized. Demanding customers would mean more
pressure, which in turn would supply strong arguments to the top management of the company.

The absence of nature

What struck us when analysing the interview was
the absence of nature per se. There was a surprising
silence regarding nature, a silence which became
audible due to the idea of the triangularity of
demands. The moderator tried several timesusing
different formulationsto ask `does nature matter?'
and `when is nature important?'
The only answer which came up was: `Well,
nature is the ultimate limit, the ultimate criterion.'
When asked if it is possible to accept a monetary
cost in order to gain something for the natural
environment (a `losewin situation'), one manager
said: `Today that is not a problem. If the management
team wants to go that far they will do so. The management can take very far-reaching decisions. If necessary
they will hide the costs in the ordinary R [sic!]. It is a
matter of desire. And the cost estimate can always
be changed to be in favour of something.' This was
emphasized even further: `If there is a true desire, a
cost-estimate can always be arranged in a way that it
comes out in a favourable way.'
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THE CONTEXT EMPHASIZED

The social context `binds people to actions that they
must justify, it affects the saliency of information,
and it provides norms and expectations that constrain explanations' (Weick, 1995:53). Socially constructed roles provide the ends to which behaviour
should be directed (Bergstrom, 1994:82; Ahrne,
1994), i.e. which drama to be played (Brunsson,
1989:66). Furthermore, just as the executive symbolizes authority (Barnard, 1938), the environmental
manager symbolizes the rm's environmental
responsiveness and structured approach regarding
work on environmental issues.
Environmental managers are selected4 by the
people already afliated with the organization (cf.
Ahrne, 1994:7). It is unlikely that the selecting party
would employ somebody who they feel is too progressive, or somebody who they feel does not
understand the conditions under which their business is operating. As one manager said: `The idealists
don't t in.' The ltering of personnel to occupy the
position of environmental manager is, we claim,
based rst of all on loyalty towards the company
goals and the rationality of business.

The business of business is business

The prevailing rationality of business is that of
protability as an overall goal. To achieve this, the
guiding star is efciency. `Modern instrumental
man, and especially so `the manager', feels in the
deepness of his heart, that it is important and good
to be effective in all ways of life' (Gustafsson,
1994:2). This is, however, not an easy task. In
practice, there are a great many kinds of disturbances and constraints that organizations must
face such as irrationality, contingencies, chanceall
variables that an organization cannot fully control
(March, 1981). Organizations are difcult to manage, especially when it comes to direct change, since
cause and effect relations are seldom clear and, thus,
difcult to steer. Most businesses have to work hard
to keep the bottom line from becoming redin a
confusing and contradictory world. This is the
situation environmental managers face in their daily
duties, and this outlook stood out clearly during the
4

In many organizations, somebody already afliated with the

organization `gets these issues on his/her table.' Furthermore,
environmental managers are recruited from widely different
occupations. In our study, the environmental managers' previous
occupations were, to mention some: director of corporate communications, human resource manager, forestry ofcer and re
protection engineer.
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202

focus group interview. It is, further, the reality that

many normative researchers in the eld tend to
disregard.
Actually, in much environmental management
literature there seems to be a neglect of business as
it is. For example, it is often said that the environment has to be integrated, it has to be `Pareto
optimal' (Welford and Gouldson, 1993:13), `smart
companies go green' (Ulhi et al, 1996interpreted
by Andersson and Wolff (1996:229), etc. This is
likely to be true in many cases, but not in all.
However that may be, the problem with such
arguments is that it implies that companies which
do not go green are not smart and that there are
numerous winwin situations to take advantage of.
In a confusing, competitive, short-term and protoriented world, this might not be all that easy.
The business of managers is to convince
The work of the manager is to talk (Weick, 1995:41).
March and Olsen (1976:25) describe organizations
as a `set of procedures of argumentation and interpretation as well as for solving problems and
making decisions.' In an organization there are
normally myriad ideas ghting for attention.
Therefore, the talk is secondary to the resulting
effect sought (Rosengren, 1995:65). CzarniawskaJeorges, (1992b:179) argues that `naming seems to be
a satisfying process, like any decision-making.'
Thus, in the choice of words (i.e. naming, labelling,
re-labelling, etc.), the rhetorical aspects of word and
meanings become fundamental. This is why we
want to emphasize the business contexta context
in which there is one prevailing rationality and,
thus, one prevailing language.

CONTRIBUTIONS AND FURTHER

REFLECTIONS
In order to question the statements made by the
environmental managers and to broaden the discussion, we need to conclude what this study holds.
As a means, we will use the analytical framework to
bring forward some points of interest. The contributions intertwine and are interdependent.
On internal demands
Environmental managers have to be sly and try to
incorporate the sustainability issue wherever and
whenever possible. Because `[a]ttention is a scarce
resource; not everyone can attend to everything all
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ENVIRONMENTAL WORK IN A BUSINESS CONTEXT

of the time' (March and Olsen, 1976:45), Therefore
the environmental manager has to use the right
language, i.e. the right rhetoric in order to gain
support. Thus, managers use different arguments
for the same matter depending on who the receiver
is. Re-labelling is, it seems, a strategy that often
works. To some extent it solves the problem of `how
to make people participate with moral enthusiasm
and at the same time follow orders and rules'
(Ahrne, 1994:114). This is nothing new in the managerial context. A Swedish telecommunications
operator was in the process of laying off 2000
employees. To avoid having to throw them out into
the cold, a `greenhouse' project was started in which
employees would be re-trained to assume new
responsibilities in or outside the re-structured
company. This group of in-transition employees
quickly dubbed the project `the compost heap.' This
suggests that re-labelling might not work and that
the same backlash might strike the re-labelling
arguments created by the environmental managers.
Integration is often seen as a way to make sure
that environmental care is not singled out, i.e. a
more robust way of caring for the environment.
However, integration could also be seen as de-signication of something. It seems as if the advocates
of integration foresee that environmental issues will
be so natural that ultimately such issues will be
treated as `nothing in particular', and will be naturally taken into account in all decisions, just as the
issue of quality (or the valuation of human resources) is supposedly treated in quality-aware rms (or
personnel-oriented rms). In this light, integration
may be the buzzword of today and the solution at
hand, and not only where environmental issues are
concerned. Ultimately, solutions built upon integration may be successful. However, there is a risk
that the problems will be dissolved rather than
solved.
The idea that environmental issues are business
issues is the dominating idea emphasized by the
managers in the study. The argument of a winwin
relationship was stressed several times during the
interview. However, the winwin truism ignores the
fact that some environmental investments are
negative for the nancial outcome. Moreover, in
relative terms, not all companies can reach a competitive advantage by `going green.' The rhetoric of
winwin represents a set of arguments attended to,
the kind of arguments which eventually will create
a desired action (Rosengren, 1995:65). The winwin
argument is an argument which ts smoothly into
the business rationale; it does not perplex the
dominating ends/means-hierarchy. From the
environmental manager's point of view (as well as
# 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

from any manager's perspective), what is said is

secondary to the end result. The winwin argument
is a good argument to put forward to top management, to the board of directors, and to the owners.
As one manager said; `Ultimately it is a question of
will' and from that perspective the best arguments
at hand are used. From the marketing literature we
can draw the concept of USP, `unique selling
proposition.' Put simply, the winwin argument
receives more attention than the opposite; thus, it is
a better selling proposition.
Another possible interpretation is that the companies which use this rhetoric, so far only have
picked the `low-hanging fruit.' That is, they have
not, yet, reached the point where decisions taken are
benecial to nature but incur more costs than revenues for the company. This interpretation is in line
with the arguments of Walley and Whitehead
(1994a): As the rm takes action for the benet of
the environment in area after area, the winwin
opportunities will become increasingly scarce.
Sooner or later a winlose situation will appear. If
the winwin relationship was always to prevail, it
would be like a perpetual motion machinethe
eternal movement towards increased protability
to the benet of sustainability.
If the winwin dogma is repeated a sufcient
number of times, and if the rhetorical ability of the
manager is sufcient, it is likely to grow into a
mytha reality mapped in the human mind (see
e.g. March and Olsen, 1976:59; Hedberg and Jonsson, 1977:89). A myth can be seen as `a theory of the
world' (Hedberg and Jonsson, 1977:90). Walley and
Whitehead (1994:b) use the words `The nirvana of
winwin.' This mantra is used in practically all
areas in the environmental discourse, for example
within companies, among green business consultants, among researchers in this eld, by journalists, and in green newsletters.
On external demands
The environmental managers, it seems, put most of
their effort into responding to internal demands.
However, the demands coming from the outside of
the organization are more important to the managers. Actually, they welcome more external
demands, and preferably more often. Their best
arguments seem to rely on these demands and are
the most effective arguments in the communication
to the top management as well as to the middle
management. As society becomes more and more
concerned with environmental issues, governmental intervention increases, thus, creating
pressure on the organization. However, the
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 S, MATHS LUNDGREN AND HANS RYNNEL

BINO CATASU
environmental managers in our study do not particularly want regulations and laws. Rather, they
want arguments and more explicit demands to be
raised by customers. As noted earlier, the environmental managers are convinced that more external
demands will come. However, we cannot help
associating the environmental managers with the
two eternally waiting hobos, Vladimir and Estragon, in Samuel Beckett's `Waiting for Godot.' In a
worst case scenario, no one will ever come to the
rescue, neither the customers nor legislators. Or if
they come, they might demand something which is
not in line with the expectations of the environmental managers. As seen from nature's perspective, the customer and the legislator may not always
be right.
On nature
Our study suggests that in day-to-day business,
nature does not constitute the main problem. Nature is, per se, not even an important argument. In a
business context, environmental care is only
instrumental. Thus, work on environmental issues
becomes a means of attaining company goals. And,
within this context, nature is not an independent
stakeholder. On the surface, everything is done on
behalf of the organization (Ahrne, 1994:28).
This is not to say that individuals, e.g. the environmental managers in our study, do not regard
environmental goals as having any intrinsic value,
because they often do (cf. Meima, 1996). Nature is
important to the environmental managers, but,
due to the constraint of their roles as environmental managers in an organization, nature remains
voiceless.
On environmental managers
In the study, the environmental managers strongly
emphasized the managerial part of environmental
management. The managers seemed to be taking
the environmental advocacy part of their role with
great earnestness. However, the language used was
that of the business manager. The good of the
business clearly seemed to dominate and the business rationale prevailed. The business rationale,
however, is not the same for all managers. The
success of a middle manager, for instance, does not
have to be in line with the success of the environmental manager. A suitable rhetorical question
could be: Does a middle manager with a poor
nancial record, but a great and well implemented
environmental program, get rewarded? The difference between an environmental manager and a
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`normal' manager was described as `the environmental manager having a broader view of the organization.' Yet, it is hardly likely that other categories of
managers (e.g. managers responsible for staff,
quality, marketing, etc.) would agree with this. With
respect to the selection of environmental managers,
their ofcial positions, their constructed role, the
dominating business rationale, the complexity of
organizational life and the necessary rhetorical skills
needed, environmental managers are no more and
no less than managers. The environmental issue is
not the main focus of rms; the protable rm ranks
before the sustainable rm. It seems clear that
environmental managers cannot go too far ahead or
be too visionary. After all, they are supposed to row
the same boat as the rest of the rowing teamand
continually come up with good arguments about
the direction in which to steer the boat, though the
environmental manager is unlikely to be the one
actually steering. The arguments have to be within
the established rationale and in a language which
the team-members understand.
Finally, we want to emphasize that we sympathize with the environmental efforts made by
many organizations. But, the fact that environmental managers are part of the prevailing business
context is important and cannot be disregarded.
After all, this paper tried to deal with what is, not
with what ought to be.

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BIOGRAPHY
All the authors can be contacted at:
School of Business,
Stockholm University,
S-106 91 Stockholm,
Sweden
Tel: 46 (0)8 16 15 50
Fax: 46 (0)8 15 30 54
Bino Catasus E-mail: BIC@fek.su.se
Maths Lundgren E-mail: MLU@fek.su.se
Hans Rynnel E-mail: HR@fek.su.se

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