This article whishes to contribute at filling the gap between the theoretical perspective on business sustainability and the actual need for procedures of preliminary evaluation and control for sustainability performances. A framework for the implementation of a sustainability-oriented approach in firm's management is proposed. The frame work assigns a crucial role to the involvement of middle management and to the definition of a control system that emphasizes interdependencies between firm's processes. A specific attention is dedicated to the complexity triggered by relationships with external and internal stakeholders. The impact of identified initiatives is assessed with an importance-performance criterion that weight the effects of planned actions with the importance assigned by the process leader (or process owner) to each specific issue. Finally, the feasibility of the various actions is investigated on the basis of a combination of the financial and organizational effort required, together with the potential impact on overall firm's sustainability assessed in the previous stage.

This article analyses the evolution of Product Life Cycle (PLC) policies of main carmakers in the three main European markets (Germany, Italy and France) through sales data regarding 212 models of 13 major carmakers for the period 1970–2006. A subsample including more detailed data (sales and features) of 125 car models along the period 1984–2005 has been investigated with the aim of comparing the effectiveness of product innovation and product line extension. According to our results, PLC is getting dramatically shorter, but the reduction does not apply to maturity and saturation phases. Carmakers tend to support sales with a policy of product line extension, while no evidence of effectiveness of such policies emerges. Product innovation seems related to increase in sales, although the introduction of new models and versions is generally delayed with respect to the optimal Life Cycle (LC) timing

This article describes the opportunity deriving from the substitution of conventional fuels with the compressed natural gas (CNG). The advantages of this fuel are: a relevant, as it concerns consumer's expenses and ecological aspect b rapidly achievable c close to hand for Europe, the USA and other countries where the motorisation is at the take-off stage, like the BRIC countries and Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia and so on.These advantages makes CNG a viable solution, with relevant advantages both on the side of pollution and expenses, while waiting for the availability of new technologies. Presently, the most important bottleneck for a large-scale implementation of this solution is represented by a possible shortage in the distribution network. Those countries crossed by gas pipeline could rapidly overcome this bottleneck without relevant costs. Otherwise, the solution could be achieved either through gas carrier's ships or through local production of biomethane by the exploitation of biomasses.

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