A fiber mill in Venezuela. Business today is operating in a profoundly different world than it did 30 years ago.
Environmental management is no longer a relatively simple matter of controlling local pollution.
Today, manufacturing companies may be held responsible for the impacts of their operations at every stage from raw material extraction through distribution to consumer use and final product disposal. These impacts are sometimes distant in space and even in time from each other. Managers must also deal with the expectations of a more environmentally aware public and the realization that reduced environmental impacts must come without sacrificing product quality or function. This new set of ground rules offers progressive businesses fresh commercial opportunities to distinguish themselves from their competitors on the basis of both product quality and environmental performance. For these companies, cleaner production processes, more recyclable designs, and new ways of delivering services with less material throughput represent aggressive investments in a changing marketplace in which environmental values have greater business currency.