Environmental factors include all those relating to the physical environment and to general environmental protection requirements. While the environment is more important to some industries, such as tourism, agriculture or food production, these factors may influence a range of different industries and are worth being aware of. Environmental factors include:
- Climate/ Global climate change
- Laws regarding environmental pollution
- Recycling and use of recycled materials
- Waste management-costs, regulations, how is waste disposed of?
- Attitudes toward "green" or ecological products and raw materials
- Attitudes, support for and costs for renewable energy
- Geographical location
- Stakeholder and consumer values
- Environmental offsets
- Weather
To find information on the environmental factors, investigate the following resources (see also the Political factors).
EPA
- Government agency tasked with protection of the environment including air, land and water resources.
Society of Environmental Journalists
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- The Society of Environmental Journalists is a non-profit national journalism organization created by and for journalists who report environmental topics in the news media.
Business Source Complete
- Business Source Complete provides coverage in business disciplines including marketing, management, management information systems, production and operations management, accounting, finance and economics. It includes full text for more than 3600 journals, including 1900 peer-reviewed titles. Also included are full-text case studies, company and industry profiles, country reports, executive and analyst interviews, market research reports and SWOT analyses.
- Search tip: Look for the Browse menu on the right side of the page and select [Country Reports]. Enter the name of a country in the All Countries search box. The results list may include:
- Country Reviews from CountryWatch (which include social and environmental overviews)
- Country Profiles from MarketLine (which include In-depth PESTLE Insights)
- Country Risk Reports from Business Monitor International (BMI).
Factiva
- Factiva.com, from Dow Jones, includes access to a wide range of information from newspapers, newswires, industry publications, websites, company reports, and more. The broad range of content provides both local insight and global perspective on business issues and current events – especially with regard to research requiring current information on companies, industries, and financial markets.
CSRWire
- Press Releases are distributed to journalists at major media outlets, investment professionals, academics, analysts, activists and consumers, NGOs and nonprofits, sustainability and CSR organizations, corporate CSR officers and other professionals focused on Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainability.
Public Company Websites
- Google search the company name and "investor relations." This will often provide links to Annual Reports; financial reports such as 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K; and corporate social responsibility reports.
- Tip: Use "legal proceedings" along with the company name(s) to find cases the company is involved in.
- Company Sustainability/Social Responsibility Reports-go to the Company's home page if it is a publicly traded company and search under Investor Relations. You can then look at what the company says and compare/contrast to what the news, press says. Are they really doing what they say they are?
