A Business Case Introduction

The business environment of this new century is characterized by an emerging paradigm with several salient features  

An anecdote involving stakeholder interaction and supply chain collaboration will serve to illustrate several of these points and begin the dialog about how these reporting requirements can lead to improved business planning. Polyvinyl chloride, also 

Additionally, since most medical paraphernalia - swabs, syringes, gloves, IV tubes, bed pans, and so on - is made of some variety of PVC, hospital waste incineration delivers other silent dangers into the air. Dioxin, hydrogen chloride, and hydrochloric acid are released and created in the process of combustion. (The incineration and collapse of the World Trade Center, for instance, sent a deadly dioxin plume over all of lower Manhattan.) 

Over the past decade in the CSR arena, a combination of environmental, healthcare advocacy and governmental groups like Health Care Without Harm, Healthy Building Network, and U.S. EPA have begun to raise issues relating to hospital materials used both for construction and day-to-day operations. 

1 A Healthcare Provider Gains Strategic Marketplace Advantage. Kaiser Permanente, headquartered in Oakland, CA, a private not-for-profit healthcare provider serving 8 million members in 11 states and a leader in the healthcare delivery field, follows CSR recommendations wherever possible. Kaiser began efforts to replace PVC in carpets, vinyl composition tiles, and particleboard several years ago. 

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