Applicability of Industrial Ecology Strategies for the Corporate Environmental Management: Selected Cases of the Eastern and Northern Zones of Tanzania

Abstract

Corporate utilization of industrial ecology principles is essential to safeguard ecosystems’ integrity, human health and economical sustainability. This study used purposive sampling with informants being workers from the strategic, tactical and control functions of corporate environmental management levels. Data collection involved survey of 50 Corporates in Dar es Salaam and Arusha cities as well as Moshi and Morogoro municipal councils with 71 respondents. Data collected include exploration of environmental management functions performed at various corporate environmental management levels. Corporate environmental management functions performed were identified. Moreover, results showed presence of unclear definition of responsibilities between workers working at the strategic, tactical and control levels of corporate environmental management. This indicates similar situation with corporate organizations located in other countries as per the literature surveyed in the study. The study recommended corporate environmental management policy making process to clearly define responsibilities of the corporate organization employees basing on their working level. This will achieve corporate environmental management efforts towards environmental performances of the processes, products and services. Furthermore, this study observed that small organizations don’t have sections specifically for handling environmental issues. Therefore, further research is recommended to explore how these small organizations manage to integrate environmental aspects in the designed products, processes and services.

Key words: Corporate Organization, environmental management, industrial ecology, Tanzania.