Technology Forces at Work

Not too long ago industry almost monolithically viewed environmental considerations as an expense--sometimes as a nuisance. That is beginning to change. Industry leaders now see the advantage of going beyond complying with environmental regulations, as had been their wont, and incorporating the search for environmentally sound business practices into their research and development. This report features case studies of four industry leaders--DuPont, Intel, Monsanto, and Xerox--and discusses how these companies view environmental technology investments. The information is based on a series of interviews with senior R&D managers and environment, health, and safety personnel along with the relevant literature. At the request of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President, the authors have provided the views of a subset of one of the key stakeholders in environmental policy, industry, which have heretofore not received a lot of emphasis.

Susan Resetar (M.S., Operations Research, University of California, Berkeley) is an operations research specialist at RAND whose research focus includes environmental and technology issues.

Beth E. Lachman (M.S., Operations Research, Stanford University) is a policy analyst in RAND's Washington office. Her expertise includes systems analysis of environmental problems, environmental science and technology policy, sustainable development policy, mathematical modeling and GIS analysis of urban systems.

Robert J. Lempert (Ph.D., Applied Physics, Harvard University) is a senior physical scientist at RAND. Dr. Lempert's recent work has focused on science and technology policy. He has led studies on science and technology planning for the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency and on innovation in environmental technologies for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science and Technology Council.