Environmental concerns have led to a significant increase in the number and scope of compliance imperatives governing electrical,
electronics, and IT products across global regulatory environments. This is, of course, in addition to general compliance
and risk issues generated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, data protection and information privacy legislation, ethics and integrity
regulations, IT governance concerns, and so on. While the latter dimensions of enterprise-wide governance, compliance, and
risk (GRC) are far from straightforward, the complexity and geographical diversity of environment-based regulatory sources
cause considerable problems for organisations in the electrical, electronics and IT sectors. Although a variety of enterprise-level
information systems are presently available to help manage compliance and reduce risk across all areas, a majority of firms
still employ ad-hoc solutions. This paper focuses on the very-much underexplored issue of environmental compliance and risk.
The first objective of this exploratory study is to delineate the problems facing GRC and Environmental Health and Safety
(EH&S) functions in dealing with environmental regulations globally and to identify how these problems are being solved using
Environmental Compliance Management Systems (ECMS). The second objective is to propose a process-based conceptual model and
related IS framework on the design and adoption of ECMS that will inform future research and, it is hoped, the IS adoption
decisions of GRC and EH&S practitioners.
Keywords Environment - Governance - Risk and compliance - IS framework - IT - Enterprise systems - Environmental compliance management systems