The limitedness of natural and environmental resources as an opportunity for sustainable yet competitive solutions

Resource limitedness, often even scarcity, has become an increasingly conditioning factor in economic development and, consequently, in international relationships. In this paper it is indicated that, in order to greatly modify resource utilisation, new criteria in designing and managing production processes should be introduced, which consider the question of all natural resources as a priority. Such an innovative activity should be an opportunity to get economic benefits both for enterprises and the whole society. Indeed, while pursuing materials, energy and environmental effectiveness and efficiency, improvements in global efficiency (notably productivity, quality, and flexibility) also have to be pursued to achieve the required return on investments. Some basic criteria are proposed and discussed here, together with several applications performed by large industries, in order to outline what directions businesses have to follow if they want to counter natural resources depletion, by pursuing a great increase of resource productivity as a fundamental aim.