One of the most devastating environmental disasters of all time, the 1984 Union Carbide plant explosion at Bhopal, India, forever changed the way corporations view environmental performance. Now, in this groundbreaking book, one of the business world's most highly regarded environmental consultants tells the complete inside story of how, in the wake of Bhopal, four multinational corporations have successfully transformed environmental performance from a major liability to a major asset.

In the process, he extracts a set of general principles which can be integrated successfully with any corporation's strategic planning and redesign process.

Writing in an accessible journalistic style, Bruce Piasecki describes how the world business community was rocked by the Bhopal debacle, and explains why some companies were plowed under by the avalanche of change that ensued, others, including Union Carbide, ARCO, AT&T, and Warner-Lambert, went on to strengthen their competitive positions.

In his vivid account of the steps taken by these companies to improve environmental performance, Piasecki clearly identifies four distinct approaches to the same problem. He shows precisely how and why each company's efforts were rewarded, not only with environmental breakthroughs but with improved financial performance as well. In a series of dramatic case histories, Piasecki reveals, for the first time, the full details of the initiatives taken at each company, including: