Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics is a corporate-focused analysis that brings clarity and practicality to the complex issues of environmental metrics in industry. The book examines the metrics implications to businesses as their responsibilities expand beyond the factory gate—upstream to suppliers and downstream to products and services. It examines implications that arise from greater demand for comparability of metrics among businesses by the investment community and environmental interest groups. The controversy over what sustainable development means for businesses is also addressed.


Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics identifies the most useful metrics based on case studies from four industries—automotive, chemical, electronics, and pulp and paper—and includes specific corporate examples. It contains goals and recommendations for public and private sector players interested in encouraging the broader use of metrics to improve industrial environmental performance and those interested in addressing the tough issues of prioritization, weighting of metrics for meaningful comparability, and the longer term metrics needs presented by sustainable development.

Table of Contents


Front Matter
Executive Summary
1 Why Study Environmental Metrics?
2 What are Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics?
3 Guide to the Industry Studies
4 The Automotive Industry
5 The Chemical Industry
6 The Electronics Industry
7 The Pulp and Paper Industry
8 Summary of Metrics Used by the Four Industry Sectors
9 Observations, Trends, and Challenges
10 A Hypothetical Model for Improving Aggregation and Presentation of Environmental Performance Metrics
11 The Sustainable Enterprise Paradigm Shift
12 A Framework for Action
A Current Reporting and Use of Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics: Global Scale
B Current Reporting of Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics by U.S. Semiconductor Companies
C Current Reporting and Use of Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics: Company Scale
Biographical Data
Index