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Integrated management is the process of including environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance in close coordination between business processes, functions, groups, organizations, and systems. In this context, decision-makers can better understand the dynamic systems in which they operate; define success based on sustainability-based performance frontier; guide decision making with strategic valuation of environmental and social guidelines; adhere to a timeline of actions that moves the enterprise toward a sustainable society; operationalize dynamic goals, for example, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); and support processes for planning with decision analysis tools to monitor and guide change management. Information within this chapter will explore how sustainability in businesses, that is, integrated management, is already underway in leading multinational companies, and can be found within any business function, and in supply chains. The value that sustainability brings to an organization is important to understand as each day there is a growing amount of data to draw from. While 80% of the value of an enterprise is within intangibles, hundreds of ESG performance metrics are now available to researchers and practitioners to make the intangible tangible. With a look on how these ESG performance metrics and the social cost of carbon are used by practitioners and researchers, a number of research propositions call for improved financial decision analysis and a new performance frontier.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between environmental management practices (EMP) and competitive operational performance with respect to reduced cost, improved quality, improved flexibility and improved delivery as well as overall environmental performance, of firms, using data from a developing country.

The study employed a survey approach with responses from 164 informants from different industries and used partial least squares structural equation modeling to examine the relationship between EMP and competitive operational performance and their overall impact on the environmental performance of firms.

The results indicate that EMP by firms have a significant positive effect on firms’ competitive operational performance. Again, firms’ competitive operational performance has a partial positive effect on the overall environmental performance. It was also realized that the EMP initiated by a firm have a direct positive impact on the overall environmental performance of the firm.

There is the need for organizations to take steps to plan and implement EMP since it is likely to enhance their competitive operational performance as well as their overall environmental performance.

The findings demonstrate the impact of EMP on competitive operational performance as well as on the overall environmental performance of firms. This is important as firms struggle with balancing investments in those practices against the perceived benefits that might be obtained from the practices.

The work provides insights and adds to the literature in the area of EMP and firm performance by providing evidence from a developing country environment. This study is among the few that have investigated the impact of EMP on firm performance in developing country environments.