This book shows what sustainable development means for the business community and presents best practice approaches in environmental management from Japan, the USA, Brazil and seven European countries. It stresses that international competitiveness depends on the effective use of innovative management tools and has to be supported by an intelligent system of environmental regulation. Experts with many years of practical experience share their knowledge of how to achieve excellency in environmental performance, and present concrete steps towards a sustainable company.

1. 1 Aims and Objectives The major aim of this research is to identify and weigh the importance of factors that promote and constrain, the adoption of environmental initiatives by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The objective is to inform how policy can overcome obstacles so as to promote the adoption of cleaner technology (includ ing environmentally sensitive products (Oosterhuis et al. 1996)) by industry. Cen tral to the research is the testing of a set of hypotheses, which, inter alia, relate the adoption of cleaner technologies to competitiveness, management culture and the importance of the provision of information. The manufacturing sectors consid ered are those dominated by SMEs where product and process environmental re sponse by the firm is important. Of these sectors, furniture, textile finishing, and fruit and vegetable processing were chosen. More specifically the focus is on European SMEs i. e. those employing less than 250 employees. ' Variations within the EU with respect to environmental regulation are exemplified by a study of firms (and plants) across four member states: Germany, North-east Italy, Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. The adoption of clean technologies has been slow and uneven and action has mainly involved good housekeeping. Major changes involving large capital spend ing, or material substitution, process redesign or reformulation have been rela tively rare (OECD 1985, 1995; Ashford 1993). The problem is particularly acute amongst SMEs (and the majority of enterprises are SMEs; e. g.

The optimistic predictions of a number of microbiologists notwithstanding, the past decade has not signaled the end of infectious disease, but rather an introduction to a host of new and complex microorganisms and their resulting depredations on humanity. The identification of new pathogens, such as the causative agent of Lyme disease and the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV), as well as the Hepatitis Delta Virus (HDV) has not only revealed new forms of clinical pathology, but new and unexpected variations on the life cycle and the molecular biology of the pathogens. In this volume a number of the leaders in the field of Hepatitis Delta virus research, ranging from clinicians and virologists to molecular biologists and biochemists describe what in their experience typifies some of these unique features.