Page 392 - Design for Environment A Guide to Sustainable Product Development

CHAPTER 21

Summary

The following is a summary of the key points presented in each
chapter of this book.
Chapter 1: Introduction. Environmental awareness is pervasive
nowadays, due to anxieties over energy security and global warm-
ing. Many leading companies have embraced sustainability
and corporate citizenship. But we have not fully acknowledged
the magnitude of the environmental challenges that we face. The
increasing throughput of materials in developed economies gen-
erates a hidden mountain of waste, depleting natural resources
and threatening ecosystem integrity. Finding a path to sustain-
able growth will require global collaboration and innovation on
an unprecedented scale. The business practice called Design for
Environment (DFE) enables companies to ad dress the twin goals
of sustainable development and enterprise integration, assuring
that new products are developed with a full understanding of life-
cycle environmental considerations.

Part 1 Answering the Call: The Green Movement

Chapter 2: Motivating Forces. Recent authoritative studies have
confirmed the reality of climate change and the degradation of
ecosystem services. The business community has found com-
mon cause with the environmental movement, which began as
a protest against industrial pollution motivated by reverence
for nature. A major turning point was the Earth Summit of 1992
in Rio de Janeiro, where the fundamental principles of sustain-
able development were first articulated, and the groundwork
was laid for the Kyoto Protocol. The World Business Council for
Sustainable Development has been instrumental in the wide-
spread adoption of sustainable business practices.

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