ABSTRACT
This chapter examines structural changes in industry that have occurred since the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972, and then looks at some of the ways that industry has moved to improve its environmental performance. Industry has historically been a significant consumer of energy and raw materials, as well as a major generator of pollution and wastes. Developing countries appear to be faced with a no-win situation. Without industrial development, they will continue to be plagued with poverty-induced environmental degradation and plummeting competitive advantage in the world market. But industrialization, when it does occur in developing countries, is often repeating all the environmental mistakes of the developed world. The environmental performance of the ‘post-industrial’ economies offers only a limited guide. Indeed, Maurice Strong has commented that ‘the livelihoods of the rich are the real security risk and greatest threat to our common future’.
