1. Implementing a genuine approach to progress

Making an organization's activities more sustainable requires leading the entire company in a comprehensive process of continuous improvement. To do this, it is necessary to:

• make an initial diagnosis by conducting an environmental assessment of the goods and services produced by the company;

• compare this assessment with that of the goods and services in the relevant areas (environmental impacts must be compared within their categories);

• establish a sustainable development or design strategy;

• develop an action plan guided by indicators.

The difficulty in taking sustainability issues into account lies in a multitude of factors, including the time-consuming and costly nature of environmental assessments,...