Cleaner Production: Towards Eco-efficiency and Risks Reduction
Definition
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) defines Cleaner Production (CP) as the continuous application of an integrated preventive environmental strategy applied to processes, products, and services in order to increase eco-efficiency and reduce risks to humans and the environment.
For production processes
CP conserves raw materials and energy, eliminates toxic raw materials, and reduces the quantity and toxicity of all emissions and wastes.
For products
CP includes the reduction of negative impacts along a product's lifecycle, from raw material extraction to its ultimate disposal.
For services
CP incorporates environmental concerns into designing and delivering services.
CP is not simply a question of changing equipment: It is a matter of changing attitudes and behaviour in doing business, applying know-how, and improving production processes as well as the product itself. Under future market conditions, companies will have to deliver competitively priced products, which meet customer satisfaction and are produced in an environmentally sound manner.
CP helps to protect the environment by reducing pollution and waste. This minimizes environmental impact, improves production efficiency and reduces costs. CP is a proactive approach, "anticipate and prevent philosophy". Prevention is always better than a cure.
The Cleaner Production Centers
Following the Rio Conference in 1992, Cleaner Production (CP) has emerged as one of the major fields for international cooperation for the Swiss Government. Similar to other international environmental conventions, the Rio Declaration called for a vigorous transfer of environmentally sound technologies and for effective technology transfer mechanisms. In response to this demand, the Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) decided to develop a coherent instrument to promote technology transfer through Cleaner Production Centres (CPCs) or environmental technology centres.
The core objectives are to assist industrial sectors in developing countries to produce in a more sustainable manner, while improving their competitiveness. CP is consequently an approach which reduces environmental pollution while procuring positive economic return for companies.
Diploma of advanced studies en stratégie environnementale et enjeux économiques
