## 2 ) Positive activities incorporating environment awareness in enterprise management

With the change of the business concept of enterprises that has been discussed above, most enterprises not only proceed with environment management by observing laws and regulations regarding environment law but also are moving towards positive introduction of the concept of environmental conservation into business management.

As an example of the new business, ESCO (Energy Service Company) comprehensively provides the technology, facilities, human resources, and funds that are required for energy conservation of buildings and factories and household electrical product rental business that focuses on the requirements for the services provided by products, not ownership of products. New products that were developed include eco-cement that is manufactured by using sewerage sludge and ashes from waste incineration as the raw materials and eco-fund, which is an environment-friendly investment trust that

## PSS (product and service system) classification (P=Product S=Service SC=System Change)

makes investments by taking the measures for environmental problems by enterprises into consideration. In addition, examples of measures for reducing the environmental load of existing products include the soap industry, which is actively promoting the refilling of containers, and the copier industry where related enterprises cooperate with recovery of other products.

## 3 ) Differences of contents and reasons of activities taken for solving environmental problems by industry type

As discussed above, each company is making various measures for environmental conservation, however, the mechanisms of the measures vary according to the situation of the industry type to which the company belongs.

Rate of measures taken for environmental conservation by industry type

Note 1: O Material type manufacturing industry,

© Processing and assembly type manufacturing industry,

Non-manufacturing industry

2. "Rate of Measures" indicates a ratio of companies that are taking some measures for environmental conservation and a complement of a non-answer rate of questionnaires. The value indicates the value produced by subtracting the rate of the non-reply companies from 100% when the major two items can be selected for "measures that are being implemented" from the eight choices of "Rate of measures being implemented", "office energy conservation", "industrial waste reduction/recycling", "energy conservation at manufacturing", "ISO certification acquisition", "green procurement", "environment-friendly design", and "material efficiency improvement." The "rate of measures currently being examined" refers to the value calculated regarding "measures that are currently being examined."

(Sample structure by company scale: total number of samples 3,764 companies)

Large companies (employees exceeding 1,000): 6.9%

Medium companies (employees 300 to 1,000 or less): 26.0%

Medium to small companies (employees 300 or less): 66.8%

Presentation: Prepared by Ministry of the Environment based on Nihon Life Insurance, "Nissei Economic Condition Questionnaires February 2001" by Nissei Foundation Research Center