Assessments of organizational “greenness” using measures other than actual environmental
impacts need to be placed in context of how we understand organizational decision making and its
outcomes. We may imagine that an organization that has been involved in fewer environmental
lawsuits is causing less environmental harm whereas it may just be better at hiding environmental
illegalities and discoveries of those harms. The use of adoption of environmental management systems
or participation in voluntary green programs to assess environmental impact is based on
assumptions that this reflects a dedication to undertaking actions that actually decrease environmental
impact. Unfortunately, surveys of the literature have found that there is little (Dietz & Stern,
2002; Strasser, 2008) or at best very mixed (Prakash & Potoski, 2007) support for organizational
participation in voluntary program resulting in improvements in environmental quality. Similarly,
one would theorize that possession of environmental attitudes about business sustainability by organizational
members would be reflected in environmental decision making and thus in improved
environmental performance. However, we know from research on individuals that proenvironmental
attitudes and beliefs do not always translate to proenvironmental actions, often due to constraints
in the choices individuals face (Gardner & Stern, 1995; Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002; Tanner, 1999).