Ecological plant indicator development for a small sized enterprise

Environmental performance is fast becoming a selection criterion both in the consumer and industrial markets. Some consumer market segments use environmental criteria when selecting a brand. In the industrial market, supplier selection by multinational firms may soon be conditioned on vendor environmental performance. This paper attempts to explore the impact of the ISO 14000 rules on a small sized enterprise. The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications that ISO 14000 adoption will have for SMEs, including how ISO 14000 will likely impact plant structure. In the end we have analysed-referring to an automotive production site-the plant utilities (electricity, compressed air, heating and air conditioning, transport) with the objective to realise an EMS with the two main tasks of minimising the environmental impacts and maximising, at the same time, global performance of those utilities in terms of energy saving and maintenance activities, and global management costs.