Page 70 - Design for Environment A Guide to Sustainable Product Development

CHAPTER 4

Business Value

Drivers

The multinational corporation, with its
efficiency, assets and capacity for innovation, is

the only institution with the resources necessary
to produce a sustainable global economy.
stuart hart [1]

Sustainability Goes Mainstream
In the early days of the environmental movement, capitalism was
perceived to be in opposition to environmental protection. The cari-
cature of “big business” was a smokestack belching out pollution,
and those involved in manufacturing industries jokingly referred to
chemical odors as “the smell of money.” Thanks to environmental
legislation and pollution control technologies, most of the odors are
long gone, but the image persists. Every so often, an unfortunate
in dustrial accident has occurred to reinforce that image—notably, the
Union Carbide isocyanate release in Bhopal, India and the Exxon-
Valdez oil spill in Alaska. The Enron scandal of 2001, as well as
WorldCom and other cases of corporate fraud, further contributed to
the notion that businesses are avaricious and amoral. In response, the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 imposed new requirements for corporate
governance, accounting, and financial reporting [2].
Although crises and scandals attract media attention, the vast
majority of business managers are scrupulous and civic-minded citi-
zens who are genuinely concerned about environmental and social
well being. Virtually all major companies have adopted the concept
of corporate citizenship, which suggests that businesses have an ethical
responsibility to society in addition to their statutory obligations.
The notion of citizenship is entirely consistent with the creeds and
value systems that are central to the corporate culture of most multi-
national corporations. These creeds often hark back to the founding
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