New challenges

Strategic product portfolio planning, product development and product marketing have become more complicated. Global markets with diverse cultures and rapidly changing consumer attitudes present a need to deploy integrated prospective management methods. The growing influence of the social setting of industrial activity is a further reason for using such tools. This setting includes statutory requirements such as socio-economic benefit analysis under the European Union’s chemicals law in the shape of REACH, the MEEuP integrated assessment method required by the EU Eco-Design Directive, market-driven elements such as financial rating, voluntary agreements such as corporate reporting, and also the sharp eye of NGOs and the media on the social acceptability of production processes in developing and newly industrializing countries.

Very few methods to tackle these new challenges have yet been developed which are clearly characterized and proven in practice. PROSA is one such method. PROSA gives particular attention to the analysis of social and economic aspects, and to the consideration of utility aspects and consumer research. In the process of developing the individual tools that make up the method, care was taken to engage in close international exchange and harmonization, for instance with SETAC on Life-Cycle Costing, with UNEP-SETAC on Social LCA and with major industrial companies on application in practice. The present manual presents the state of development of the PROSA method as of March 2007.