Organising environmental investments in small and medium-sized firms: A cost-benefit instrument as a tool for integrating environmental policy into overall business policy

In the Netherlands, three surveys, conducted in 1991,1992 and 1996, have indicated that voluntary introduction of environmental management is progressing in all branches of industry and with firms of all sizes, but not to such an extent as to satisfY government expectations (Heida et al. 1996; Van Someren et al. 1993). The 1996 survey also showed that systemisation and integration into all business processes was clearly lagging. Another major point was that existing environmental measures were, in many cases, directed only at effect prevention and not at source prevention.