From Cleaner Production to Advanced Product Development Strategies - a Business Success Story

Industrial Ecology is still an unknown concept in most of industry. Only the most advanced companies know the term and can give an explanation about what it means to them. However, most companies have an understanding about what environmental consciousness mean, and when you start talking about environmental management and how to benefit from environmental strategies most companies looks at this as very important in a global market. In Norway we see that many small and medium sized enterprises have problems with taking theses challenges into account, especially since they have limited personal resources to deal with these aspects. For them it is important to have support from experts who can guide them through the jungle of different environmental management standards and help them to implement the right ting at the right time. This paper will present how a group of small companies have been taught about the different aspects of industrial ecology and how they gradually have implemented environmental management systems from simple �Cleaner production� projects, to environmental management and internal accounting systems, reporting practice, environmental conscious product development, LCA, environmental product declarations and finally is the leading company in the development an advanced modulus product development tool where also economic and quality aspects are included. The presentation will finally sum up with the lessons learnt and the benefit for the company and its influence on the triple bottom line.