Literature review of environmentally responsible manufacturing

Environmentally Responsible Manufacturing (ERM) is a proactive managerial approach used to describe a company's effort to integrate environmental thinking into its decision-making processes. The ERM body of knowledge is very diverse and has been shaped by research in numerous interdisciplinary areas. Unfortunately, this diversity has kept researchers from developing a thorough understanding of the current status of research within the ERM field. One method of developing a mastery and familiarity with this body of knowledge is to develop a taxonomy within which the current literature can be framed. This is the major objective of the paper. For the purposes of this paper, over 9,000 articles, governmental publications, Internet publications, books, and the such were examined.