M
MIPS (Material Input Per Service Unit) Method
In assessing product life cycle impacts, the total material input of a product system (development though manufacturing through delivery) is measured per these units. More information: www.wupperinst.org/Sites/home1.html...[Read more about this term]
Manufacturing Capital
One of at least four forms of capital used by people, organizations, corporations, and governments, to build and maintain their livelihoods. Manufacturing Capital includes all material resources and energy used throughout the manufacturing process and how effectively and sustainably these...[Read more about this term]
Market Failure
A market's inability to create maximum efficiency, by not properly providing goods or services to consumers, not efficiently organizing production, or not serving the public interest. The term does not refer to the collapse or demise of a market, but...[Read more about this term]
Market Segmentation
A business process focused on defining market segments on the basis of customer demographic or psychographic attributes (such as age, location, culture, etc.). Segmentation is best when it uses the same understandings gained from market and user research used in...[Read more about this term]
Marketing
The process of understanding people and markets in order to provide better products and services and differentiate offerings. Marketing consists of both the "inhale" (customer and market research aimed at understanding needs, desires, and cultural contexts as well as competitors),...[Read more about this term]
Materials Audit
The process of investigating the costs and effects of materials used in manufacturing in order to determine more efficient, less costly, less toxic (or dangerous), and more sustainable options....[Read more about this term]
Meaning
The deepest level of significance at which an organization’s products, services, or experiences can touch a customer. “Meanings” are the ultimate ideals that explain the significance of our lives. Recently, marketing theory has integrated meaning into corporate strategic development. Meaningful...[Read more about this term]
Meeting
The biggest source of wasted time in most organizations. Successful, meetings should have: A clear agenda An appointed facilitator or leader An appointed person to track time Attendance limited to only those who need to be involved (and included those...[Read more about this term]
Methodology
Commonly mistaken for the term process or practices, methodology is actually the study of processes, practices, or procedures....[Read more about this term]
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
A UN-funded study of the state of ecosystem services around the world. It is the most extensive and accurate study of its kind. Launched in 2001 and completed in March 2005, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reports on habitat status, fishing,...[Read more about this term]
Mission (Corporate)
An organization’s ultimate purpose or reason for being. A company’s mission should define the opportunities or needs which the company seeks to address, what the company is doing to address those needs, and the principles or beliefs which guide the...[Read more about this term]
Mission Related Investing
The investment of a foundation's endowment assets in opportunities that align with its program goals. Some foundations have common under criticism for endowment investments in companies who are seen to cause the very problems their programs seek to remedy....[Read more about this term]
Monstrous Hybrid
A term coined by Michael Braungart and William McDonough for a product, component, or material that combines both technical and organic nutrients (such as recyclable paper and poly-vinyl-chloride) in a way that cannot be easily separated, thereby rendering it unable...[Read more about this term]
Muda
A Japanese word for waste especially through poorly organized systems. Organizations seeking economic, manufacturing, and human efficiency seek to design and/or replace systems to eliminate muda....[Read more about this term]
Multiple Stakeholders
Traditionally, stakeholders in a company have been thought to be limited to stockholders and, possibly, employees. However, stakeholders have come to refer to all people for whom a company or its products and services have an impact, including, customers, governments,...[Read more about this term]
