ABSTRACT
The world has a 200-year industrial legacy which has helped to improve the standard of living and provide access to goods and services and to cheap energy for many of the world's population (but not for those as yet untouched by industrialisation but who aspire to industrialised levels of affluence and environmental amenity) . As time passes, the world seems a smaller place from any individual company's perspective and there is recognition that natural resources and environmental media (e .g. supplies of air and water) are not infinite. There is also recognition that the world cannot continue to absorb ever-increasing quantities of waste from industrialised living processes. Unless nature's resources are used more effectively and efficiently and are more equitably spread among the world's population an environmental crisis will occur, given the increase in global human population. Companies have to come to terms with this scenario.
