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
Mar 23 2023 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #environment, #investors, #supply-chain SEC Corp Fin Targets Climate in 10-Ks/10-Qs
Mar 21 2023 #climate, #compliance, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain ESG in the News: Analysis of CorpFin comment letters on ESG/climate disclosures; 18-state anti-ESG alliance formed; no Scope 3 for Shell
Mar 20 2023 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain “Wokeness”is Scapegoat for SVB’s Failure: How You Can Prevent That in Your Company
Mar 17 2023 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #investors, #supply-chain SEC Sets the Stage for Formal ESG Disclosure Controls
Mar 13 2023 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors, #social, #supply-chain ESG in the News: Private Equity questions ESG; P&G, Lufthansa, DWS face new greenwashing claims
Mar 10 2023 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors, #supply-chain Support May Be Waning for Scope 3 Emissions Disclosure in SEC Rule
Mar 9 2023 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain Indonesian EV Minerals IPOs to Test Investors, Manufacturers, Climate and Human Rights
Mar 6 2023 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain ESG in the News: Child labor increases in US; Biden to veto DOL ESG rule rollback
Mar 3 2023 #climate, #environment, #esg, #investors Hidden ESG Messages for Every Company in Warren Buffett’s Annual Letter 2023
Mar 2 2023 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #investors, #social More Companies Disclose Anti-ESG Trend as 10-K Risk Factor
Feb 27 2023 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain ESG in the News: BP ignores shareholder votes; First anti-ESG 10-K risk factor filed
Feb 23 2023 #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors, #social Updates on ESG and the Ohio Rail Disaster
Feb 22 2023 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #investors, #social, #supply-chain What the Ohio Derailment Teaches About ESG Disclosure
All Topics
- Assurance 143
- Climate 345
- Compliance 362
- Diversity 188
- Environment 324
- Equity 167
- ESG 558
- Guest Post 31
- Human Rights 209
- Investors 357
- Social 218
- Supply Chain 231
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