Sustainable Business.

Sustainable development is about creating everlasting improvement through the provision of ecological, social and economical combination in which will continue providing the improvements and enhances the quality without an end of that.

Sustainable development is an approach to meeting our present needs without compromising the needs of future inhabitants of the earth. The goal is to maintain a good and healthy lifestyle for as many people for as long as possible - potentially forever. Examples would be: Not using easy or cheap industrial processes that pollute the air or water when better less harmful processes are available, not destroying endangered eco-systems just because they are handy to present development, extracting new materials from ore at the expense of power and resources when recyclable materials are available. Tools in the pursuit of sustainable development are understanding the total impact of decisions, avoiding waste production, avoiding over consumption, appropriate conservation of resources against future needs, reclamation of damaged ecosystems, identification and use of renewable energy and material resources, energy and material reclamation and recycling, adopting lower impact lifestyles. (http:// wiki.answers.com /Q/ What_does_sustainable_development_mean. Accessed at 29-12-2010).

Norsk Hydro

Norsk Hydro’s environmental and sustainability work evolved in four phases. In Phase 1, the ‘repairs’ phase, efforts were concentrated on cleaning up local pollution and amending ‘sins of the past’. In Phase 2, the ‘preventive’ phase, the focus changed to developing and installing ‘cleaner technology’ – technology that prevents pollution from occurring in the first place. Phase 3, the ‘business development’ phase, concentrated on analyzing and minimizing the environmental impact of products throughout their entire life-cycle, from raw materials, through production and use, to their subsequent recycling or reposition. In Phase 4, the ‘globalization’ phase, Norsk Hydro began addressing the challenges of globalization of economies and markets, as well as global environmental issues such as climate change and the Kyoto Protocal. Each phase has provided Norsk Hydro with organizational experiences and knowledge. (Holliday, Schmidheiny, Watts)