| Abstract: |
Miami-Dade County presents a critical case for understanding how organizations embed environmental management into operations within a coastal, climate-vulnerable, hyper-diverse metropolitan region. Rapid population growth, sea-level rise, saltwater intrusion into aquifers, and heat island intensification have elevated environmental governance from compliance exercise to existential infrastructure challenge. This empirical study examines SEM adoption across 320 organizations spanning manufacturing, hospitality, real estate development, municipal services, and port operations across Miami-Dade's three tiers: the central urban core (Miami proper), the intermediate suburban belt (Kendall, Westchester, Hialeah), and peripheral exurban communities (Florida City, Homestead, Princeton). Drawing on structured questionnaires, the analysis measures eight practice dimensions environmental policy, EMS certification, green procurement, waste and circular-economy initiatives, stormwater and water conservation, renewable energy, community/environmental-justice engagement, and staff training and regresses these against a sustainability performance index capturing resource efficiency, pollution reduction, regulatory compliance, climate adaptation capacity, and environmental justice outcomes. Results reveal uneven adoption (mean = 3.35), with significant performance gains for high adopters (r = 0.71; R² = 0.50), but stark disparities between affluent central Miami neighborhoods and underserved peripheral areas where industrial facilities, landfills, and port operations concentrate. The paper argues that SEM in Miami-Dade cannot succeed without explicit attention to environmental justice and climate resilience principles largely absent from the Western SEM literature. Policy recommendations center on building equitable, place-sensitive environmental capacity while integrating adaptation planning into municipal development frameworks. |
