Editor Director of Sustainability, CCRcorp
Lawrence Heim has been practicing in the field of ESG management for 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 are launching the company’s practices into Mexico and saving 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.
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
Jun 24 2025 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain A Backwards Way to Find Operating Value of Sustainability
Jun 18 2025 #climate, #environment, #esg, #supply-chain Being Nice to AI Wastes Resources
Jun 18 2025 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social Attending the State Bar of Texas Annual Meeting 2025?
Jun 17 2025 #diversity, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social Tractor Supply Results Indicate DEI Isn’t Universally Material
Jun 17 2025 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain JPMorgan: Stock Price Impact of Sustainability Controversies “Enduring” but “Challenging to Discern”
Jun 12 2025 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social What’s Happening With Shareholder Proposals on ESG/Sustainability – Part 1
Jun 12 2025 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social What’s Happening With Shareholder Proposals on ESG/Sustainability – Part 2
Jun 12 2025 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #supply-chain New This Week on PracticalESG.com
Jun 11 2025 #compliance, #esg, #human-rights, #supply-chain Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Enforcement Continues
Jun 11 2025 #climate, #environment, #esg, #supply-chain Old Operating Technologies Create Big Financial Wins for Sustainability
Jun 10 2025 #climate, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain New Study on ESG Investing: Same as Non-ESG Investing?
Jun 10 2025 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #investors, #social Big Companies Stop Publishing Sustainability/DEI Reports. Should You?
Jun 5 2025 #climate, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social, #supply-chain New This Week on PracticalESG.com
Jun 4 2025 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors, #supply-chain More From The Conference Board: “80% of Companies Adjusting ESG Strategies”
All Topics
- Assurance 335
- Climate 1368
- Compliance 1262
- Diversity 624
- Environment 1390
- Equity 601
- ESG 1909
- Guest Post 36
- Human Rights 631
- Investors 1160
- Social 849
- Supply Chain 990
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