Environmental Impact Reduction for Small and Medium-sized Manufacturing Enterprises in New Product Development

Environmental impact reduction (EIR) in product development can involve numerous activities. In relation to business objectives, the strategic review and integration of EIR should be considered a best practice development opportunity and a contribution towards longer term sustainability. It should be recognised that EIR requirements are often complex and challenging for businesses to implement, especially for those companies lacking the knowledge and resources. This has been found to be the case particularly with Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) due to the limitations of available capital and resource. This research was therefore seeking to investigate how to improve practices of sustainable product development in UK SMEs, and in what ways EIR alternatives should have influenced current practices in new product development.