Cleaner production is a preventive, company-specific

environmental protection Environmental protection, or environment protection, refers to the taking of measures to protecting the natural environment, prevent pollution and maintain ecological balance. Action may be taken by individuals, advocacy groups and governments. ...

initiative. It is intended to minimize waste and emissions and maximize product output. By analysing the flow of materials and

energy Energy () is the physical quantity, quantitative physical property, property that is transferred to a physical body, body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of Work (thermodynamics), work and in the form of heat and l ...

in a company, one tries to identify options to minimize waste and emissions out of industrial processes through source reduction strategies. Improvements of organisation and technology help to reduce or suggest better choices in use of materials and energy, and to avoid waste, waste water generation, and gaseous emissions, and also

waste heat Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work. All such processes give off some waste heat as a fundamental result of the laws of thermodynamics. Waste heat has lower utility ...

and noise.

Overview

The concept was developed during the preparation of the Rio Summit as a programme of UNEP ( United Nations Environmental Programme) and UNIDO (

United Nations Industrial Development Organization The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) (French: Organisation des Nations unies pour le développement industriel; French/Spanish acronym: ONUDI) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that assists countries in e ...

) under the leadership of Jacqueline Aloisi de Larderel, the former Assistant Executive Director of UNEP. The programme was meant to reduce the environmental impact of industry. It built on ideas used by the company 3M in its 3P programme (pollution prevention pays). It has found more international support than all other comparable programmes. The programme idea was described "...to assist developing nations in leapfrogging from pollution to less pollution, using available technologies". Starting from the simple idea to produce with less waste Cleaner Production was developed into a concept to increase the resource efficiency of production in general. UNIDO has been operating National Cleaner Production Centers and Programmes (NCPCs/NCPPs) with centres in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe. Cleaner production is endorsed by UNEP's ''International Declaration on Cleaner Production'', "a voluntary and public statement of commitment to the practice and promotion of Cleaner Production". Implementing guidelines for cleaner production were published by UNEP in 2001. In the US, the term pollution prevention is more commonly used for cleaner production.

Options

Examples for cleaner production options are: *Documentation of consumption (as a basic analysis of material and energy flows, e. g. with a Sankey diagram) *Use of indicators and controlling (to identify losses from poor planning, poor education and training, mistakes) *Substitution of raw materials and auxiliary materials (especially renewable materials and energy) *Increase of useful life of auxiliary materials and process liquids (by avoiding drag in, drag out, contamination) *Improved control and automatisation *

Reuse Reuse is the action or practice of using an item, whether for its original purpose (conventional reuse) or to fulfill a different function (creative reuse or repurposing). It should be distinguished from recycling, which is the breaking down of ...

of waste (internal or external) *New, low waste processes and technologies

Initiatives

One of the first

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an initiatives in cleaner production was started in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

in 1992 by the BMVIT (Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie). This resulted in two initiatives: "Prepare" and EcoProfit. The "PIUS" initiative was founded in Germany in 1999.PIUS: Produktionsintegrierter Umweltschutz
/ref> Since 1994, the

operates the National Cleaner Production Centre Programme with centres in

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

, and Europe.

References

Bibliography

* Fresner, J., Bürki, T., Sittig, H., Ressourceneffizienz in der Produktion -Kosten senken durch Cleaner Production, , Symposion Publishing, 2009 * Organisation For Economic Co-Operation And Development(OECD)(Hrsg.): Technologies For Cleaner Production And Products- Towards Technological Transformation For Sustainable Development. Paris: OECD, 199
Google Books
* Pauli, G., From Deep Ecology to The Blue Economy, 2011, ZERI * Schaltegger, S.; Bennett, M.; Burritt, R. & Jasch, C.: Environmental Management Accounting as a Support for Cleaner Production, in: Schaltegger, S.; Bennett, M.; Burritt, R. & Jasch, C. (Eds): Environmental Management Accounting for Cleaner Production. Dordrecht: Springer, 2008, 3-26

External links