Page 111 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

Ch003-P373623.qxd 3/22/07 5:29 PM Page 90
Sustainable Industrial Design and Waste Management
90
Business and financial barriers
Private firms are the basic economic units that generate innovative ideas
which, among other goals, serve to enhance environmental quality. Corpora-
tions employ a spectrum of organizational approaches to handle environ-
mental matters. In some cases the environment division of a corporation
concerns itself exclusively with regulatory compliance and the avoidance of
civil liability for environmental matters. For other firms the environment
plays a more strategic role in corporate decision making. Decisions made at
the executive level strongly determine whether or not companies adopt new
technologies and practices that will affect their environmental performance.
Also, the manner in which corporations integrate environmental costs into
their accounting systems, for instance how to assign disposal costs, bears
heavily on its ability to make both short- and long-term environmentally
responsible decisions.
Research is needed to better understand the role of corporate organiza-
tion and accounting practices in improving environmental performance and
the incentives to which corporations respond for adopting new practices and
technologies. Such studies would examine the learning process in corporate
environments as well as investigate how corporate culture influences the
ultimate adoption or rejection of environmentally innovative practices.

Regulatory barrier
Environmental regulation strongly induces companies to appreciate the envi-
ronmental dimensions of their operations. Businesses must respond to local,
national, and international regulatory structures established to protect envi-
ronmental quality.
Although few question that regulations have helped to improve envi-
ronmental quality, many argue that wiser, less commanding regulations would
improve quality further at less cost. Agreements on hazardous waste tightly
regulate the transport of these wastes across state and national boundaries,
perhaps reducing opportunities for reuse and encouraging greater extraction
of virgin stocks. Elements of the national regulatory apparatus for wastes,
heavily control the storage and transport of wastes and dictate waste treat-
ment methods that also serve to dissuade later efforts at materials recovery.

Regional strategies barrier
Often geographic regions may provide a sensible basis for implementing IE.
Industries tend to form spatial clusters in specific geographic regions based
on factors such as access to raw materials, convenient transportation, tech-
nical expertise, and markets. This is particularly true for “heavy” industries
requiring large resource inputs and generating extensive waste quantities.
Furthermore, the industries supporting large industrial complexes tend to
be located within reasonable proximity to their principal customers. Due to