• Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges.
  
• Principle 8: Businesses should undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility.
• Principle 9: Businesses should encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.

The reduction of pollution and the responsible use of finite resources through energy efficient technologies lower costs and therefore enhance the competitiveness of businesses. The key element of a precautionary approach, from a business perspective, is the idea of prevention rather than cure. In other words, it is more cost-effective to take early action to ensure that irreversible environmental damage does not occur. Business gains its legitimacy through meeting the needs of society, and increasingly society is expressing a clear need for more environmentally sustainable practices. Given the increasingly central role of the private sector in global governance issues, the public is demanding that business manage its operations in a manner that not only enhances economic prosperity and promotes social justice, but also ensures environmental protection in the regions and countries where it is based.

Environmentally proficient technologies allow us to reduce the use of finite resources and to use existing resources more efficiently. As environmentally sound technologies reduce operating inefficiencies, they also lead to lower emissions of environmental contaminants. This benefits in the first case workers who are exposed to much lower levels of hazardous materials on a dialy basis and also results in a substantially reduced risk of accidents or technological disasters.