The efficiency of becoming eco‐efficient

The 1990s has been characterised by a rapid growth in corporate environmental management and analyses. Examines the environmental outcome and corporate economic benefits from this work in industry in general by using a dominant player in the telecommunications industry, Ericsson which also is prominent in its environmental work, as a case study from 1997 to 2002. Indicates a gap in the late 1990s between the needs of company units financing environmental studies and the research scope used by the environmental experts initiating the work. The environmentally motivated life‐cycle studies have not improved ongoing design projects towards eco‐efficient offerings. Corporate product units need time and cost‐effective procedures and guidelines to enable front‐end design. As a consequence, resources for life‐cycle assessments (LCAs) have decreased while materials declarations still goes on as a front‐end design instrument. Now LCA has evolved into a method for stakeholder communication of both life‐cycle environmental impacts for individual products as well as for the entire life cycle impacts of the whole product portfolio of the corporation. LCAs play a role in design projects, exclusively as a back‐end design tool, by having improved the design guidelines used.