Editor Director of Sustainability, CCRcorp
Lawrence Heim has been practicing in the field of ESG management for almost 40 years. He began his career as a legal assistant in the Environmental Practice of Vinson & Elkins working for a partner who is nationally recognized and an adjunct professor of environmental law at the University of Texas Law School. He moved into technical environmental consulting with ENSR Consulting & Engineering at the height of environmental regulatory development, working across a range of disciplines. He was one of the firm’s leading environmental compliance and management systems auditors and helped create the company’s first national practice for environmental auditing. Among his professional highlights during this time was developing an innovative regulatory strategy that saved a major petroleum refinery $150 million in waste management costs associated with a new waste listing.
Lawrence became an in-house environmental audit manager with Georgia-Pacific, then a publicly traded Fortune 150 manufacturer. At Georgia-Pacific, he designed and implemented a comprehensive redesign of the company’s internal environmental audit and corrective action program which was later approved without modification by EPA and Department of Justice as part of a $120 million Clean Air Act settlement. He was also one of the company’s primary experts on waste management regulations. It was during this time he was granted a charter Certified Professional Environmental Auditor (CPEA) designation from the Board of Environmental Auditor Certifications during their inaugural year.
Lawrence joined Marsh USA and helped create the Global Environmental Risk Consulting Practice, shifting his focus from compliance to a broader vision of environmental impacts to business and risk management, working with clients to reduce their environmental risk profile by adapting traditional risk management processes and tools. At the same time, he continued to provide regulatory compliance support to clients and was Marsh USA’s primary environmental regulatory expert nationally.
As a partner at Elm Consulting Group, he continued providing international clients support on environmental, health and safety compliance and management systems. He founded subsidiary Elm Sustainability Partners and became an internationally recognized expert in conflict minerals, responsible minerals supply chain due diligence and associated audit programs/practices. He was the only non-financial auditor selected by the US Securities and Exchange Commission to participate as an expert panelist on the conflict minerals rule and provided guidance on non-financial auditing to US Departments of State and Commerce. Lawrence remains one of only a handful of auditors to have conducted Independent Private Sector Audits (IPSAs) of Conflict Minerals Reports submitted to the SEC under Dodd Frank Section 1502. While at Elm, he was voted to the Board of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) Environmental, Safety and Health Audit Center.
During his time at the Responsible Business Alliance/Responsible Minerals Initiative, he led an unprecedented period of due diligence standards development, including spearheading an expansion into ESG standards for responsible mineral supply chains.
Lawrence is the author of Killing Sustainability (2018, 2022) and is a former Board Member of ASSET, the anti-slavery organization founded by award-winning actress and former UN Goodwill Ambassador Julia Ormond.
Recent Posts by Lawrence Heim
Feb 13 2025 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors, #supply-chain Legal Departments See Big Changes Related to Sustainability Staffing
Feb 13 2025 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain The New Future of Sustainability Is … Its Past
Feb 13 2025 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain New This Week on PracticalESG.com
Feb 12 2025 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors, #supply-chain Acting SEC Chair Announces Action on Climate Disclosure Rule
Feb 12 2025 #compliance, #diversity, #equity, #esg, #investors, #social Addressing DEI Risks From Recent Federal Government Actions
Feb 12 2025 #compliance, #environment, #esg Will Federal Environmental Deregulation Be a Boon for Environmental Professionals?
Feb 11 2025 #climate, #environment, #esg, #investors It Happened – AI Emissions Spawn Shareholder Activism
Feb 6 2025 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain The Wheels on the (Omni)Bus Go Round and Round
Feb 6 2025 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors, #social, #supply-chain New This Week on PracticalESG.com
Feb 5 2025 #climate, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #social, #supply-chain Record C-Suite Turnover Is a Problem for Corporate Sustainability
Feb 5 2025 #climate, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain Are You Putting Too Much Pressure on Yourself?
Feb 5 2025 #compliance, #environment, #esg Back to Basics: “Stronger Focus on Traditional EHS Metrics From Regulators”
Feb 4 2025 #climate, #environment, #esg, #investors, #supply-chain Investors Are Examining Offset Use in Portfolio Companies – Are You Ready?
Feb 4 2025 #climate, #environment, #esg, #supply-chain Did DeepSeek Just Deep Six Decarbonization Hopes?
All Topics
- Assurance 325
- Climate 1215
- Compliance 1132
- Diversity 573
- Environment 1232
- Equity 551
- ESG 1727
- Guest Post 36
- Human Rights 572
- Investors 1040
- Social 777
- Supply Chain 859
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