Starting with the main aim of finding a common pattern, this research has been
conducted with 18 worldwide manufacturing companies that have their headquarters
or their overseas headquarters in Europe. The 18 companies have from 2,000
employees to 8,000 and belong to different sectors. Table I shows how the sample of
companies chosen for this research was stratified into sectors
The sample of 18 companies was selected from the European database of ISO 14001
certified companies; this is usually managed by the accreditation bodies for each