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 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
May 20 2022 #compliance, #diversity, #equity, #esg, #human-rights ESG Fraud Hits Interviews in Banking and the NFL
May 20 2022 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors Tesla Was Cut from the S&P 500 ESG Index – Why It Matters to Your Company
May 19 2022 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors ESG at Corporate Annual General Meetings: More At Stake Than Ever – Especially Today
May 18 2022 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors Quick Hits May 18: Investors Soften Position on Ukraine; ERM Issues Full Report on Climate Disclosure Costs; World’s Largest Carbon Capture Project Is… Meh.
May 16 2022 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors New Analysis of SEC Climate Disclosure Costs
May 13 2022 #climate, #environment, #esg, #investors Fate of Climate Commitments at Risk due to Fossil Fuel Ambiguity
May 10 2022 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors, #social, #supply-chain Quick Hits May 10: SEC Extends Climate Disclosure Comment Period; DOJ Allows Supplemental Environmental Projects Monetary Awards Again; UK Grid Locks Out Renewables
May 9 2022 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain ESG Overwhelm: It’s Getting Even More Intense
May 9 2022 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #social, #supply-chain Tomorrow’s Webcast – Putting the “G” First: Oversight of “E” & “S” in ESG
May 6 2022 #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #social Potential Corporate Risks from a Roe v. Wade Ruling
May 5 2022 #compliance, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain Quick Hits May 5: Uyghur Importation Ban to be Expanded? German ESG Rules Dropped
May 5 2022 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors New PracticalESG.com Member Exclusive Resources
May 4 2022 #diversity, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social Today’s DEI Workshop: Practical Info on Civil Rights Audits – From Trailblazers Laura Murphy, Eric Holder & More
May 3 2022 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors, #social EU Stirs the ESG Disclosure Pot With New EFRAG Proposal
All Topics
- Assurance 67
- Climate 161
- Compliance 155
- Diversity 94
- Environment 161
- Equity 75
- ESG 290
- Guest Post 24
- Human Rights 90
- Investors 167
- Social 102
- Supply Chain 98
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