Abstract Environmental management has become a wild card to the companies, especially small and medium enterprises. Pressures from governments, civil society organizations and the market itself, have been pushing companies to adopt an environmentally friendly approach. Such situations of pressure driving companies to invest in technology called "end of pipe" or "turn key" showing that the adoption of the environmental variable is presented largely as business costs. The objective of this paper was to study how the process was the incorporation of environmental variable on a small dairy industry. Because the situation of low capital investment, especially in micro and small enterprises, alternatives to the adoption of the environmental variable has been the search for clean technologies and eco-efficiency. Therefore, in order to be the case study of a small dairy industry, the theoretical discourses on clean technologies and eco-efficiency, in order to present another alternative is that companies seeking to benefit from environmental attitude that are being driven to adopt. The results show that environmental management in the proposed model for clean technologies and eco-efficiency provided by, among several benefits, generating new revenues from the sale of byproducts previously considered waste. It is therefore concluded that the dairy industry gained numerous benefits, especially the way the project was conducted and it was adopted a proactive stance
