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
Jan 22 2025 #assurance, #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors EFRAG Report: EMAS Is Still Relevant, Helpful for ESRS Reporting
Jan 22 2025 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social Another ESG Materiality Risk: Keeping Two Sets of Books
Jan 21 2025 #assurance, #compliance, #esg, #human-rights, #social, #supply-chain BBC Investigation: Shein Suppliers Exceed Legal Working Hours
Jan 21 2025 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #supply-chain US Government Suppliers Won’t Have to Disclose Climate Risks Under FAR
Jan 21 2025 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #investors ESG Investing: A Divide Between Courts, State Laws and Reality?
Jan 16 2025 #climate, #environment, #esg Supreme Court: Climate Damage Suit Against Oil Companies May Proceed
Jan 16 2025 #compliance, #esg, #human-rights, #supply-chain Record Number of Entities Added to UFLPA Entity List in New Update
Jan 16 2025 #climate, #environment, #esg, #investors, #social, #supply-chain New This Week on PracticalESG.com
Jan 15 2025 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg, #human-rights, #investors, #social Waves of Copycat Anti-ESG Litigation Could Follow American Airlines Ruling
Jan 15 2025 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg Key Lesson from UK Decision on Virgin Atlantic Sustainability Advertising
Jan 15 2025 #climate, #compliance, #diversity, #environment, #equity, #esg Matt Sekol on ESG Professionals: “It’s Understandable to Feel the Way You Do”
Jan 14 2025 #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors Federal Court Rules ESG Conflicts With Fiduciary Duties
Jan 14 2025 #climate, #compliance, #environment, #esg, #investors Banks Quit the Climate Club, Win a Prize
Jan 14 2025 #climate, #environment, #esg, #investors, #supply-chain Is NZAM Shutting Down? Possibly.
All Topics
- Assurance 326
- Climate 1224
- Compliance 1139
- Diversity 578
- Environment 1241
- Equity 556
- ESG 1736
- Guest Post 36
- Human Rights 575
- Investors 1048
- Social 783
- Supply Chain 863
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