Industrial change towards environmental sustainability : the case of chloroflourocarbons

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims at providing an insight into one of the most influential ecological change efforts of our time, culminating with the banning of the use of chloroflourocarbons, CFCs, conceded as being linked to one of the most severe threats to our ecosystem, the depletion of the earth's ozone layer. This change effort, extending over a quarter century, is analyzed, drawing on the responses of three unrelated industries directly affected by the ban. As this thesis exposes, industry can play something of a dual role, on the one hand as a substantial contributor to ecological problems and on the other, as a promising source of solutions to such problems. A greater understanding of forces that impede or propel industrial change toward sustainable practices will enhance the capacities of both industrial actors and policymakers to design policies, industrial processes, and products aimed at promoting environmental sustainability. The change efforts carried out in three different, real and expanding industrial contexts, namely, refrigerator manufacture, circuit board assembly and furniture foam processing, are addressed. It is hoped that this thesis offers researchers, managers, policy makers, environmentalists and others directly interested the insight it sets out to provide into the workings of change towards sustainability in larger industrial systems.