Environmental management practices in industries of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) from 2011 to 2015.

Abstract This study aimed to identify and analyze the environmental management practices in the industry carried out in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) in the period from 2011 to 2015, with the aid of scientific literature published in the Scopus database. Due to the expansion of the bloc's development, these countries presented a high potential to impact the environment. Therefore, this study is relevant because it identifies trends about the Environment Management Practices that have been followed in industries of BRICS, increasing the theoretical allowance for discussions concerning Environment Management Practices in these countries. Consequently, a survey on environmental management practices was conducted using the keyword "industrial environmental management practices" and the name of each country. Besides that, a "second quest" was added with the term "case study" to refine the results. We found out that China, India, South Africa and Brazil have been studying solutions for the CO 2 emissions by employing different environmental management practices. In addition, in the studies on China, India and Brazil, environmental management practices recurrently approached topics concerning the supply and water quality, the regulatory standards of environmental management and the practice of Green Supply Chain Management. However, we did not find papers concerning the environmental management practices in Russia through the employed methodology. We concluded that China, India and Brazil tend to present papers on the issue of environmental management (in English and in the database, from which they were gathered) because these countries show a more sustainable development, thus publishing a higher number of researches in this field, whereas Russia and South Africa do not follow this trend due to a weaker environmental engagement. With regard to that, it is suggested that further studies investigate the environmental management practices in other developing and developed countries, which would allow to draw a comparison with other groups. Graphical abstract Source: Authors (2017). Image Highlights • The BRICS environmental management practices were investigated. • The case study articles found in the Scopus database were considered. • The environmental management practices concerning the CO 2 emission were the main focus of attention of the BRICS. • Practices concerning water quality were recurrent in China, India and Brazil. • Each country presents environmental management practices specific to their realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]