Editor
Lawrence Heim has been practicing in the field of ESG management for more than 35 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 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) and is a 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
Dec 7 2022 #climate, #compliance, #esg, #investors, #supply-chain How to Avoid ESG Meaning “Too Many Things”
Dec 6 2022 #climate, #compliance, #esg, #investors, #supply-chain SEC Addresses Climate in 2022-2026 Strategic Plan
Dec 5 2022 #esg Liz Says Goodbye … Almost
Dec 5 2022 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain ESG in the News: Anti-ESG takes root in Florida; Clean Tech’s “S” & “G” risks
Dec 1 2022 #climate, #compliance, #esg, #investors, #supply-chain Webcast Transcript Available for ESG Legal Developments in the EU: “ESG Regulation is an Unknown Unknown”; “The EU is Legislating with Extraterritorial Effect”
Nov 30 2022 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #supply-chain What a Review of 600 GHG Disclosures Found
Nov 29 2022 #assurance, #esg, #human-rights, #social, #supply-chain Social Risk and Workplace Conditions Still Haunt Apparel and Retailers
Nov 28 2022 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg Google Street View Cars Now Monitor, Report Air Quality and Emissions Data
Nov 28 2022 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain ESG in the News: Is slavery loophole in U.S. Constitution closing?; global concern of ESG costs “will hinder” strategy & implementation
Nov 23 2022 #assurance, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors SEC Fines Goldman Sachs for ESG Investment Failures
Nov 22 2022 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #environment, #investors COP27 Talks Allowing Countries To Buy Carbon Credits Moves Forward and Sets Precedent
Nov 21 2022 #compliance, #diversity, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social Microsoft Board Publishes Results of Investigation on Effectiveness of Workplace Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination Policies
Nov 21 2022 #climate, #compliance, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain ESG in the News: SEC Official Says Climate Material “Not Just As Financial Statement” Issue; CFOs Say Quality of ESG Reporting is “Poor”
Nov 18 2022 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #investors, #social How to Stay Above the Anti-ESG Movement
All Topics
- Assurance 108
- Climate 282
- Compliance 288
- Diversity 150
- Environment 268
- Equity 129
- ESG 467
- Guest Post 30
- Human Rights 161
- Investors 288
- Social 167
- Supply Chain 183
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