ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses how BMW and General Motors have responded to environmental regulations and which activities they have initiated to improve their environmental performance. Environmental activities in the product chain are increasingly based on co-operation throughout the chain with the goal of making environmental improvements at each stage of the production process. The car chain consists of two, more or less independent, networks: a production network; and a use, recycling and disposal network. In a process-oriented strategy, the emphasis is on individual companies in the product chain and on how they can reduce their environmental impacts. The predominant situation has been that environmental regulations have developed independently in both networks. In regulatory terms, it can be stated that public environmental regulations have been supplemented with self-regulation. The apartheid regime has fostered an environmental regulation in Roman–Dutch legal tradition, and has continued into the new political era of the African National Congress.
