FOREWORD
 The Asian Productivity Organization (APO)
started its Green Productivity (GP) program in the mid-1990s
in response to the challenges of sustainable development
arising from the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. The primary
objective of the GP program is to integrate productivity
improvement with environmental concerns. Hence, the APO’s
GP program is guided by the twin objectives of productivity
enhancement and environmental protection. This linkage of
productivity and the environment is a key feature of the APO
approach to GP.
The implementation approach adopted by the
APO for the GP program is demonstration projects, wherein
factories or enterprises are chosen to demonstrate the
feasibility and viability of combining productivity and
environmental concerns. These projects serve as models for
replication in other similar businesses, both within the
country and in other APO member countries. The results
achieved by the Green Productivity Demonstration Program
(GPDP) are widely disseminated by the APO through the
publication of documents, audio-visual materials, organizing
workshop meetings and seminars, and sponsoring observational
study missions to the GPDPs.
The initial GPDPs taken up by the APO were
primarily in the industrial sector in general and small and
medium enterprises (SMEs) in particular. Over the years,
however, the GP concept has expanded to the agriculture as
well as service sectors. The Vietnam Productivity Center (VPC)
and the Vietnamese Ministry of Science, Technology and
Environment (MOSTE) successfully implemented the first GPDPs
at the community level under the APO support, thus exploring
new avenues for GP application.
Between 1998 and 2001, GPDPs were
successfully implemented in eleven villages in Vietnam. This
was an exemplary form of cooperation among various agencies
such as the APO, the Directorate for Standards and Quality (STAMEQ),
MOSTE, various provincial Departments of Science, Technology
and Environment (DOSTE), Departments of Rural and
Agricultural Development (DRAD), the communities where
projects were implemented, many research institutes, and
others. It is heartening to note that in the next phase of
the project, the Vietnamese Government is expanding GP
projects to seventy-two communities in Vietnam.
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