Two significant trends are shaping the environmental agenda: Green procurement - more and more businesses, governments and even consumers are seeking ecoproducts; and, new product related guidelines, directives and regulations have already been developed. How should business respond? There are tools and approaches available. This book, "ECODESIGN – the competitive advantage", was written specifically to provide guidance and will help managers of small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as others interested in the management of business, in a range of ways, including: how to best deal with the European Union’s new Ecodesign directives; how to understand the concepts behind (and the process of calculating) the carbon footprint of products; how to prepare for future challenges related to, for example, climate change, resource depletion and shortages, increasing restrictions on the use of toxic substances, and energy management; and how to best position products which have been environmentally improved in a competitive marketplace. In order to deal with the myriad of challenges, the authors have included simple, but detailed checklists that can be used to evaluate a company’s operations and serve as a guide to finding solutions. These have been structured around the corporate, management, product and production levels typically found in any enterprise. Environmental expenditures should not be viewed as costs, but rather investments – with the expectation that prudent investment will yield competitive advantage.
ECODESIGN – The Competitive Advantage
Alliance for Global Sustainability Bookseries Science and Technology: Tools for Sustainable Development
VOLUME 18 Series Editor Dr. Joanne M. Kauffman 6–8, rue du Général Camou 75007 Paris France
[email protected] Series Advisory Board Professor Dr. Peter Edwards Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – Zurich, Switzerland Dr. John H. Gibbons President, Resource Strategies, The Plains, VA, USA Professor David H. Marks Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Professor Mario Molina University of California, San Diego, USA Professor Greg Morrison Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden Dr. Rajendra Pachauri Director, The Energy Resources Institute (TERI), India Professor Akimasa Sumi University of Tokyo, Japan Professor Kazuhiko Takeuchi University of Tokyo, Japan Aims and Scope of the Series The aim of this series is to provide timely accounts by authoritative scholars of the results of cutting edge research into emerging barriers to sustainable development, and methodologies and tools to help governments, industry, and civil society overcome them. The work presented in the series will draw mainly on results of the research being carried out in the Alliance for Global Sustainability (AGS). The level of presentation is for graduate students in natural, social and engineering sciences as well as policy and decision-makers around the world in government, industry and civil society.
For other titles published in this series, go to www.springer.com/series/5589
Wolfgang Wimmer Kun Mo Lee Ferdinand Quella John Polak ●
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ECODESIGN – The Competitive Advantage
Wolfgang Wimmer Vienna University of Technology and ECODESIGN company Vienna, Austria
[email protected] Kun Mo Lee Ajou University Suwon, Korea
[email protected]
Ferdinand Quella Siemens AG (retired) Ottobrun, Germany