Cleaner production and competitive advantage for the enterprise in the age of environmental sustainability

United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) started talking about Cleaner Production (CP) from the end of the eighties. The definition of Cleaner Production there used is: “the continuous application of an environmental, integrated and preventive strategy to processes, products and services in order to increase global efficiency and reduce risks for human beings and environment”. This may be applied to industrial processes, products and services offered to collectivity, referring to a kind of mentality where goods and services are obtained with the minimum environmental impact and considering the present technological and economic limits. The need to face environmental problems connected to the need to guarantee a correct social and economic development has been translated to political commitment at international level. Main sustainable development meetings, among these the “Earth Summit” of Rio de Janeiro of June 1992, allowed discussing environmental problems of our planet and their connections with the problems of economic and social development. In order to afford the challenge of sustainable development, protect environment and, at the same time, improve productivity and competitiveness, it is necessary using a series of innovative tools of political, financial, legal and, above all, technological nature. Therefore, in order to connect sustainable development and economic growth, are of main importance the development and the diffusion of technologies made to reduce environmental pollution and the consumption of natural resources, improving, at the same time, the growth of the whole economic system. The sector of environmental technologies represents one of the most dynamic and innovative sectors, offering the opportunity for a new wave of technological progress and renewal of investments, as asked by European Union. European Union, the same, in a recent report, has showed the need to invest in development and in the introduction on the market of new environmental technologies, assuming that these may contribute to sustainable growth.