Integrating product quality and environmental performance through innovation—the l'oréal case

Meeting the demands of today's marketplace has become an increasingly complex challenge for corporations in all industries. The consumer is demanding high-quality products, low cost, and more recently, a new variable: environmental performance. Customers will not accept sacrifices in quality or cost to help businesses meet regulatory requirements or develop environmentally sound products. They want it all. Consequently, companies are faced with the complex task of balancing cost, quality, and environmental performance.     

Building partnerships — the Ohio Materials Exchange

This paper discusses a method by which individuals working in government, private business, not-for-profit and educational organizations developed a collaborative statewide program involving the exchange of materials from manufacturers, commercial business and not-for-profit organizations in Ohio.     

Materials policy — planning for consensus : Henniker V

The 1978 Henniker Conference on materials policy attracted a record number of participants from the USA and abroad. The week-long biennial gathering brought together 110 high-level materials administrators, policy makers, and researchers from government and private sectors. Henniker V, 30 July-4 August 1978, Henniker, New Hampshire.     

Packaging waste measurement—A key element in digital's total quality program

Measurement of packaging waste is a key element of the Total Quality Management program at Digital Equipment Corporation. This case study shows how the company uses measurement techniques to set priorities for which areas of packaging waste should be addressed first and to track improvements over time. To date, an 1,800-ton annual reduction in packaging waste has been achieved, with associated annual savings of $2.7 million.     

Human actions, the survival of keystone species, and the resilience of ecological–economic systems

Human (managerial) actions affect the survival probabilities of the keystone species of an ecological–economic system. In turn, the well-being of these keystone species translates into the well-being or the resilience of the underlying ecological–economic system. What are the theoretical connections between human actions, keystone species survival, and the resilience of ecological–economic systems? In this note, we construct a simple stochastic model to draw out the links between this trinity.     

Why—and how to—benchmark for environmental excellence

Benchmarking your company'S environmental program against that of another company or organization is one of the more effective means of assuring it is on track toward environmental excellence. If used properly and objectively, it provides a means of gauging the progress of your environmental program while allowing both companies to benefit from new and innovative ideas for improvement. Benchmarking is capable of measuring program efficiency, program design, and program outputs. Benchmarking also provides environmental managers the unique opportunity of sharing successes and failures with respect to program integration into operations. This article describes the steps involved in designing and implementing benchmarking to assess the design of an overall environmental management program.     

Sustainable management of demolition waste—an integrated model for the evaluation of environmental, economic and social aspects

A model is presented for evaluating waste management systems for their contribution to a sustainable development, including environmental, economic and social aspects. The model was tested in a case-study, where groups of long-term unemployed people were offered both education on environmental issues and practical work with the recovery and recycling of building and demolition waste as a form of vocational development. Application of the suggested model revealed the overall effects on sustainability of different methods of waste management. In addition, negative aspects of the systems analysed were identified, which led to discussions about possible improved practices within the waste management systems. Two of the waste management systems investigated (the recycling of steel and re-use of sanitary porcelain) showed a potential contribution to sustainable development in all of the aspects studied. Preparing bricks for re-use showed the largest potential for eco-efficiency, but had negative effects on sustainability from the social perspective of health and the working environment. The possibility of further use of the model and the remaining obstacles to such analyses are discussed. One observation is that the data collection needed to perform this kind of sustainability analysis is resource-demanding, and that it would therefore be better to identify a smaller number of key indicators.     

Environmental legislation and regulation in 1995—what to expect

The environment will continue to be a “hot” issue in 1995. Having accomplished its early goals of attracting attention, cleaning up existing environmental problems, and preventing the development of new ones, the environmental movement in the last decade of the twentieth century will be a more measured, moderate response to environmental issues, driven in part by economic realism, economic opportunity, and the forces of political conservatism.     

The Road to NHDPlus — Advancements in Digital Stream Networks and Associated Catchments

A progression of advancements in Geographic Information Systems techniques for hydrologic network and associated catchment delineation has led to the production of the National Hydrography Dataset Plus (NHDPlus). NHDPlus is a digital stream network for hydrologic modeling with catchments and a suite of related geospatial data. Digital stream networks with associated catchments provide a geospatial framework for linking and integrating water‐related data. Advancements in the development of NHDPlus are expected to continue to improve the capabilities of this national geospatial hydrologic framework. NHDPlus is built upon the medium‐resolution NHD and, like NHD, was developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Geological Survey to support the estimation of streamflow and stream velocity used in fate‐and‐transport modeling. Catchments included with NHDPlus were created by integrating vector information from the NHD and from the Watershed Boundary Dataset with the gridded land surface elevation as represented by the National Elevation Dataset. NHDPlus is an actively used and continually improved dataset. Users recognize the importance of a reliable stream network and associated catchments. The NHDPlus spatial features and associated data tables will continue to be improved to support regional water quality and streamflow models and other user‐defined applications.     

How to integrate information strategy planning with environmental management information systems—part I

Rational, cost-effective provision of mission-critical environmental management information remains elusive for almost all large enterprises. Even among the best performing companies—best performing from the perspectives of profitability, quality and/or environmental stewardship—environmental management information systems (EMIS) are usually comprised of dozens to hundreds of individual, isolated applications that require costly data capture, training, and maintenance. This article, the first of two, will discuss ways to coordinate information infrastructures with strategic goals and business processes.     

践行循环教材之困——从千份调查问卷看中小学循环教材的使用

正到2013年秋季开学,安徽省合肥市中小学实行循环教材政策正好满一年,学校和家庭各方面对循环教材的使用反响如何?使用循环教材的可行性如何?循环教材涉及的教材科目有没有再扩大的可能?为了了解师生和家长使用循环教材后的心声,我们设计了两份问卷,并选取了合肥     

Total quality product design—how to integrate environmental criteria into the product realization process

Recent case studies on the financial benefits of pollution prevention programs well attest to the notion that a commitment to the environment can help profitability not only by avoiding costs and potential liabilities, but also by generating environmentally-based opportunities for competitive advantage. Achieving these benefits, however, represents a complex management challenge that requires embedding environmental concerns in the day-to-day decisions and actions of a company'S employees. This article shows how the marriage of corporate environmental stewardship and TQM, better known as TQEM, is particularly well suited to the area of product design and why environmental health and safety experts can improve a product'S environmental performance.