Currently, the environmental performance of companies worldwide makes it necessary to include the environmental variable in management models, in order not to deteriorate the environment, create a good corporate image and improve internal profitability indices.
Just 10 years ago, when I started my studies on corporate environmental strategy, talking about the compatibility of the environment with the interests of the company was crazy. For a long time the paradigm of indiscriminate use of the environment and profitability without assuming environmental and social costs dominated the world.
This for different reasons:
- The modern industrial revolution brought with it the increase in business productivity. The philosophy of the industrial revolution was purely extractive. The depletion of resources and population growth were never considered.
With the new times and before the growing population bomb and the need to redistribute scarce resources in a growing population, the problems of the type of availability and quality of natural resources worsened. International and national legislation were intensified on the subject and today they consider fines and rates for industrial pollution. Although consumers demand clean products, they have not expressed their willingness to pay better prices for these products, on the contrary, they continue to consume traditional, better positioned, cheaper (and polluting) products.
However, when making exhaustive analyzes of product production and marketing costs, it has been concluded that clean production is profitable for a company in the medium and long term, which generates a competitive advantage in these horizons, however in the short term has difficulties such as:
- Positioning of green products Price war Process conversion It starts from scratch, since the environment is new and to be built
Companies such as 3m, Procter & Gamble, SHELL, AT&T have established in their business missions and have acquired corporate commitments aimed at improving production processes and increasing profitability based on environmental protection, through innovation, investment in R&D and compliance. of environmental regulations. Among the best environmental performance practices adopted by these companies we have:
- Process eco-efficiency Clean production Technological conversion Use of waste as raw material for other production processes Energy savings Pollution prevention Risk management
Companies like 3M have achieved significant cost savings and profit in their exercises by using the tools of Environmental Design Engineering based on perseverance, true commitment and application of environmental policies within all aspects of the company, including the demand for improvement of environmental aspects to its suppliers.
