Integrated Environmental Management : A Transdisciplinary Approach

This book combines continuous improvement management tools and principles with proven environmental assessment methodologies--including risk and substitute’s assessment and full cost accounting. IEMSs assist companies in making sound environmental decisions as part of daily business practices. This book will bring together ecological and technological toolboxes used in different disciplines in a trans-disciplinary method.

Based on 40 years of experience, Integrated Environmental Management: A Transdisciplinary Approach brings together many ecological and technological tool boxes and applies them in a transdisciplinary method. The book demonstrates how to combine continuous improvement management tools and principles with proven environmental assessment methodologies. This integrated ecological and environmental management approach lets you view environmental problems from a holistic angle, considering the ecosystem as an entity as well as the entire spectrum of solutions and possible combinations of solutions.

The book discusses the importance of examining all facets or possible problems associated with an ecosystem simultaneously and evaluating all the solution possibilities proposed by the relevant disciplines at the same time. The authors underline that there is no alternative to integrated, multidisciplinary, ecological–environmental management—at least not on a long-term basis. They lay down the fundamental concepts in an applications-oriented manner that allows you to apply the seven steps of environmental management directly.

However, the book goes beyond delineating the available tool boxes; it also details how they can be integrated and combined to find an optimum solution to ecological–environmental problems.