Incentives For Non-pollution

7 Pages 1816 Words

eir operations, take measures to reduce waste and pollution in advance of regulation, and find positive ways of taking advantage of business opportunities through total quality environmental management.(4) For many firms, environmental values are now becoming an integral part of their corporate cultures and management processes. In a growing number of companies, environmental impacts are being audited and accounted for as a "second bottom line."(5) Although environmental impacts are not always measured in conventional financial terms, they have a special value that companies find increasingly difficult to ignore. (6)

Quality-driven businesses are learning that pollution prevention is often far less costly than regulatory compliance. And cutting-edge firms are going beyond preventing pollution in their own operations and exploring new opportunities for developing green products, processes, and technologies. Expanding markets for pollution-prevention technologies, processes, and services offer companies that develop them new sources of revenues, and technology diffusion will assist governments around the world to control more effectively the emission of air and water pollutants that degrade environmental resources.
Forces Driving Proactive Environmental Management
Progressive corporations are now looking at environmental performance from a far different perspective than they did a decade ago.(7) Beyond complying with increasingly more stringent regulations, they must protect or enhance their ethical images, avoid serious legal liabilities, satisfy the safety concerns of employees, respond to government regulators and stockholders, and develop new business opportunities in order to remain competitive in world markets. Market and business factors play the most important roles, but a wide array of forces are driving corporations to adopt proactive environmental management strategies.
Regulatory Demands
Not complying with government ...