Environmental Sustainability and Development in Organizations: Strategies to Improve Environmental Performance

For many years, companies around the world have sought different ways to gain a competitive edge. In the past, companies practiced differentiation or implemented low-cost strategies in order to gain this edge, but they are no longer enough at present. Instead, competitiveness now depends on how companies can solve problems of pollution, such as atmospheric emissions, effluents and solid wastes. There are two types of pollution mitigation that a company can employ: corrective and preventive. Additionally, companies are required to ensure that their operational performance complies with environmental regulations and pollution taxes and is appealing to green markets and customers who are looking for ecologically conscious products. This chapter proposes and discusses a new strategy to improve environmental performance by reducing process-based pollution in order to offer greater value to customers and superior profit for companies. Finally, this chapter details how to integrate this new strategy into an organization in order to improve environmental business performance and how it can lead companies on a path to achieving a greater competitive edge.