Case studies

Publisher Summary This chapter presents two studies of pharmaceutical packaging and networking within the automotive industry and it illustrates how environmental requirements affect industrial activities. The directives on producer responsibility are forcing OEMs to organize the recovery and disposal of their products with the lowest possible environmental intervention. This pressure is translated down through the supplier's chain to sub-suppliers, material producers and end-of-life industries. The requirements for recycling and efforts to improve environmental performance demand organizational and technology change to retain performance and profit. The automotive and chemical industries are two of the industry sectors exposed to the hardest environmental criticism. They can turn this to their advantage by putting themselves at the forefront of environmental change. The first case study shows how an environmental strategy is disseminated from corporate level into a business sector of a medical company and how this has affected the sectors' packaging strategy. The activities presented in the second case study show the possibilities and difficulties encountered by the plastics-related industries of the automotive sub-supplier chain, as well as by the automotive producers themselves. There is still much to be done, and the discussion on priorities for environmental improvements within transport continues.