Emergence of a sustainable business community*
Joseph Fiksel
Life Cycle Management, Battelle Memorial Institute,
505 King Ave., Columbus, Ohio 43221, USA
Abstract: Global population and environmental pressures are
challenging multinational companies to develop new business strategies
founded upon the principles of sustainabilityassuring that they can
meet the needs of both present and future generations of customers and
stakeholders. Corporate sustainability requires understanding the "triple
bottom line", which includes economic, societal, and ecological
performance. It involves designing products and processes with a full
awareness of their life-cycle costs and benefits, and seeking new technologies
to create more value with fewer resources. To put sustainability into
practice, companies are beginning to transform their core business processes
and develop environmentally and socially responsible products and services.
Many are adopting the concepts of industrial ecology and green chemistry
in an effort to transform their operations from a linear to a closed-loop
business model. This changing climate is creating new opportunities
for breakthrough research and development, ranging from nanotechnology
to green chemistry.
*Lecture presented at the IUPAC CHEMRAWN
XIV Conference on Green Chemistry:Toward Environmentally Benign Processes
and Products, Boulder,Colorado, USA, 9-13 June 2001. Other presentations
are published in this issue, pp.1229 1330.