Cleaner production is a preventive, company-specific

environmental protection Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment by individuals, organizations and governments. Its objectives are to conserve natural resources and the existing natural environment and, where possible, to repair da ...

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

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of hea ...

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 and noise.

Overview

The concept was developed during the preparation of the

Rio Summit The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio Conference or the Earth Summit (Portuguese: ECO92), was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to June 14, 1992. Earth Su ...

as a programme of UNEP ( United Nations Environmental Programme) and UNIDO ( United Nations Industrial Development Organization) 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 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. 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 of waste (internal or external) *New, low waste processes and technologies

Initiatives

One of the first

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

an initiatives in cleaner production was started in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

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 United Nations Industrial Development Organization operates the National Cleaner Production Centre Programme with centres in

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...

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

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...

, 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

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