ABSTRACTThe main objective of this article is to analyze the addition of environmental management to the organizational structure of nine Brazilian companies seeking to improve their relationship with the environment. The intention of outlining an agenda for future research on the subject was another objective. To achieve these objectives, a theoretical review of the relationship between the organizational structure and organizational environmental management was carried out. This theoretical review served as the background for the study of nine cases carried out in companies with ISO 14001 certification in the state of São Paulo. Results show that: (a) the area of environmental management tends to be subordinated to the area of quality; (b) of the nine organizations, two tend to adopt more advanced and complex practices of environmental management, which leads them to have a more complex organizational structure; (c) only two organizations have included environmental management of the “matrix” type, while seven organizations can be classified as the type of “timely integration of environmental management”; (d) it is possible to propose a framework for understanding the process of introducing environmental questions in the nine cases analyzed. In addition to these results, a thematic agenda for future research was presented.