This positive change in attitudes and practices is echoed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which says: ‘There is now a realistic prospect of harmonizing environmental and economic considerations, and thus of gradually incorporating these objectives in policy.’ Many executives have demonstrated that pursuing sustainable development strategies makes good business sense. For example, a 3M manufacturing plant scaled down a wastewater treatment operation by half, simply by running cooling water through its factories repeatedly instead of discharging it after a single use. Meanwhile Dow’s ‘Waste Reduction Always Pays’ programme, which began in 1986, has fostered more than 700.
