Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-1998

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Major Professor

Frank McCormick

Committee Members

Dewey Bunting, William Cole, David Johnson

Abstract

As the greatest contributor to environmental degradation worldwide, industry must undergo great change to achieve environmental sustainability. Required change will be fundamental in nature, test industry's capacity to modify current practice, and demand a degree of commitment that regulation alone cannot generate. Environmental protection approaches that produce economic benefits for industry would provide incentives for this change. This research investigated the most promising means of achieving such a goal: (1) modifying production processes to prevent environmental hazards before they occur and (2) improving production management. Previous studies of cleaner production methods have focused on the major industrial economies of North America and Europe. The current research considered facilities in a developing country context (i.e., Brazil) and found numerous examples of environmental actions that resulted in both improved environmental and economic performance. Results indicate that 33% of firms studied used process modification as one means of addressing environmental concerns; 100% of these firms realized economic gains from these environmental efforts. In this research, companies that realized economic gains from their environmental efforts shared a number of characteristics that were observed only rarely in other companies. The most basic of these characteristics was the establishment of a formal environmental program containing the following features: a written statement of environmental policy, clearly defined environmental goals, clear leadership on environmental issues and periodic audits of environmental management systems by a group from outside the facility. Certain facilities whose environmental programs displayed additional features were still more likely to realize economic gains from their environmental efforts. These additional features were: periodic self-assessments of environmental performance, active employee involvement programs, and strong links between quality improvement activities and efforts to improve environmental performance.

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