Laura Kanninen

Cleaner Production –what does it mean? Cleaner Production (CP) is a term for reducing environmental impacts from processes, products, and services by using better management strategies, methods, and tools.

Management strategies 1. EMS (Environmental Management Systems) Environmental Management (EM) is the management of a company's activities that have an impact on the environment. Its objectives are to conserve natural resources, limit emissions of pollutants, environmental hazards and create a safe workplace. Environmental Management Systems (EMS) are part of the overall management systems (that include organisational structure and planning activities, responsibilities, practices and procedures, and processes and resources) for developing, implementing, achieving, reviewing and maintaining the environmental policy. An EMS is a continual cycle of planning, implementing, reviewing and improving the environmental performance of an organisation. It helps to initiate environmental management in all areas. Nevertheless, EMS should not be understood as separate system from the overall management strategies, it should be compatible to them. In addition, EMS should eventually become invisible within a quality management system that addresses economic, social and environmental aspects. EMS matrix presented below clarifies the concept of EMS.

Picture 1. EMS Matrix. Environmental standards such as EMAS and ISO 14001 are closely related to EMS. Nevertheless, those can be seen as tools, which assist total quality management. More information on EMAS and ISO 14001 can be found on the section Management tools.

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2. Total Quality Management “We have learned to live in a world of mistakes and defective products as if they were necessary to life. It is time to adopt a new philosophy.” Definition: Total organization using Quality principles for the Management of its business processes. - TQM is a systematic customer focused approach to continuous performance improvement. - TQM is about satisfying customers’ needs - TQM is a philosophy and set of guiding principles, which represent the foundation for continuously improving the organization through employee involvement. - TQM applies quantitative methods and human resources o to improve the materials and services supplied o to improve all the processes within the organization - TQM is about the integration of fundamental management techniques, existing improvement efforts, and technical tools, under a disciplined approach to focus on continuous improvement. Following international quality systems (related to TQM) can be used within a framework of EMS: a. EFQM Excellence Model (European Quality Award) b. Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award (American Quality Award) These quality awards can be used to motivate employees in a quality development process to achieve the goals set for the organisation. The point in the quality award is, the company not only will have the chance to be recognised in the most prestigious competition for Organisational Excellence but, even more important, the company will receive detailed written and oral feedback to accelerate you along the road to Excellence. Organisation has to apply to the competition for the quality awards. 3. Change Management (in relation to implementing Cleaner Production strategies) Change Management is the process, tools and techniques to manage the people-side of change processes, to achieve the required outcomes, and to realize the change effectively within the individual change agent, the inner team, and the wider system. There are a multitude of concepts on Change Management and it is very difficult to distil a common denominator from all the sources that are applying the phrase to their mental maps of organizational development. But obviously there is a tight connection with the concept of learning organizations. Only if organizations and individuals within organizations learn, they will able to master a positive change. In other words, change is the result from an organizational learning process that centres around the questions: 'In order to sustain and grow as an organization and as individuals within; what are the procedures, what is the know-how we need to maintain and where do we need to change?', and, 'How can we manage a change, that is in harmony with the values we hold as individuals and as organizations?'

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4. Competence Management (in relation to implementing Cleaner Production strategies) Competence management is a part of strategic HR (Human Resources). In the competence management process it is essential to make sure to define, capture and measure the existing competences to identify development needs and activities. With focused activities and measuring the company can reach and maintain the competence required. 5. Risk Management Risk management is the decision-making process involving considerations of political, social, economic, environmental and engineering factors with relevant risk assessments relating to a potential hazard so as to develop, analyse and compare regulatory options and to select the optimal regulatory response for safety from that hazard. Essentially risk management is the combination of three steps: risk evaluation; emission and exposure control; risk monitoring. Risk Management is the process of deciding which action to take when a risk assessment indicates that a danger of loss exists. Risk management includes a range of actions (e.g., prevention, mitigation, preparedness, recovery) that are designed to mitigate an increasing risk of natural and technological hazards; decrease a risk to existing levels; and plan ways to respond to natural and technological hazards as well as catastrophic events. 6. Balanced Scorecard Balanced Scorecard is a relatively simple - thus popular - framework for establishing and managing indicators of business performance that are linked to strategy and vision. Many software companies support BS. Several academics have been exploring the concept of the Sustainable Balanced Scorecard as a framework for managing for sustainable development and cleaner production. The balanced scorecard is a management system (not only a measurement system) that enables organizations to clarify their vision and strategy and translate them into action. It provides feedback around both the internal business processes and external outcomes in order to continuously improve strategic performance and results. When fully deployed, the balanced scorecard transforms strategic planning from an academic exercise into the nerve centre of an enterprise. 7. Supply Chain Management: Reverse Logistics The area of reverse logistics is concerned with the care for products and packaging materials after they have been used, but also with internal and external returns of defective or unsold products. Reverse logistics refers to all logistic activities to collect, disassemble and process returned products, parts and packages in order to ensure an environmentally friendly recovery at reasonable economic cost. Reverse logistics is a rather broad term. For instance, it may refer to the return of empty bottles of a softdrink company as well as to the recycling process of automobiles.

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Reverse logistics deals with three basic questions: - What alternatives are available to recover products and packaging materials and who performs the recovery activities? - Is it possible to integrate reverse logistics with existing procurement, production, and distribution systems? - What are the economical and environmental costs and benefits of reverse logistics? 8. Business with waste management The environmental efficiency of a company affects the successfulness of the business activities; the profitability improves, and the costs reduce. In addition, environmental efficiency is also a competitive advantage for an enterprise. 9. Innovation management/Knowledge management Innovation management concerns issues on how to challenge and facilitate creative potential, and how then to imbed this into result oriented innovative business development. The creativity of individuals, coupled with structured and well-managed innovation projects, create a sound base from which organizations may operate effectively within their inter-organisational and societal environment. Today, successful operations must go hand in hand with the ability to anticipate future opportunities. Therefore, a cultural focus and inspiring leadership are as crucial to an organization's success, as efficient structural arrangements and support facilities. Innovation management: To create compelling business opportunities the discrete strands of strategy, consumer demand, competitive environment, available technology and company capabilities must be interwoven to form a cohesive, innovative concept.

Management methods 1. Assessment methods Assessment is done to identify opportunities for CP. a. Eco Mapping Eco Mapping is a method in which an initial environmental review can be made. It is suitable for SMEs. Basically it is about drawing the activities taking place in the company and outside of it, about mapping. b. Life cycle assessment (LCA) Life Cycle Assessment (or life cycle analysis) is an integrated "cradle to grave" approach to assess the environmental performance of products and services. The inventory table is the most objective result of a LCA study. However, a list of substances is difficult to interpret. To make this task easier, life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is used for evaluation of the impacts. Three steps in impact

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assessment describe a general approach, through the calculation of environmental effects. There are three steps: 1. Classification and characterization 2. Normalization 3. Evaluation or weighting c. Also many other methods 2. Measurement methods a. Measuring Eco Efficiency Input/output indicators. Input indicators are energy and material requirements, for example. Output indicators are global warming, acidification, or ozone depletion potentials. b. Environmental Shareholder Value The environmental protection practised by companies has a beneficial effect on shareholder value. The shareholder value approach does not take a positive view of every act of environmental management, but only of enterprise-valueenhancing measures exhibiting the following characteristics: -

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Capital-extensive: Software rather than hardware ('smarter', smaller, cheaper installations) Low-material-consuming: Reduced throughput (lower purchase, storage and depreciation costs) Sales-boosting: Increasing the benefit and attraction to customers (more desirable products and services for more customers) Margin-widening: Increasing the benefit to customers and reducing the costs of producing the products and services (higher prices due to greater benefit and lower operating costs through improved operating efficiency) Safeguarding the flow of finance: Confidence of the capital market (lower and less systematic risks, and (if applicable) 'green bonus') Long-term value-enhancing: Anticipation of future costs and earnings potential

c. Financial analysis 3. Planning methods a. Eco Efficiency The concept describes a vision for producing economically valuable goods and services while reducing the ecological impact of their production. Eco-efficiency means producing more goods and services with less energy and fewer natural resource. Eco-efficiency is a combination of economic and ecological efficiency, in other words, eco-efficiency means producing more with less. Eco-efficient businesses get more value out of their raw materials as well as producing less waste and less pollution.

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Critical aspects of eco-efficiency are: - A reduction in the material intensity of goods or services - A reduction in the energy intensity of goods or services - Reduced dispersion of toxic materials - Improved recyclability - Maximum use of renewable resources - Greater durability of products - Increased service intensity of goods and services b. Design for environment 'Design for Environment' (DFE) is an umbrella term describing techniques used to incorporate an environmental component into products and services before they enter the production phase. DFE seeks to discover product innovations that will meet cost and performance objectives while reducing pollution and waste throughout the life-cycle. A wide variety of techniques are available, and they fall into two broad categories: Techniques that are used to identify the environmental impact of a product throughout its life cycle such as life-cycle assessment; Techniques that help designers improve the environmental performance of their products. The most common DFE practices used include: - Design for recycling - Design for disassembly - Design for energy efficiency - Design for remanufacture - Design for disposability - Hazardous material minimization c. Eco-Labelling The Flower is the symbol of the European Eco-label – your guide to greener products and services. It is a voluntary scheme designed to encourage businesses to market products and services that are kinder to the environment and for European consumers - including public and private purchasers - to easily identify them. The European Eco-label is part of a broader strategy aimed at promoting sustainable consumption and production. Also other kinds of eco labels exist. d. LCA

4. Purchasing methods a. Green Purchasing (Supply Chain Management) Environmentally responsible or 'green' procurement is the selection of products and services that minimize environmental impacts. It requires a company or organization to carry out an assessment of the environmental consequences of a product at all the various stages of its lifecycle. This means considering the costs

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of securing raw materials, and manufacturing, transporting, storing, handling, using and disposing of the product. 5. Reporting methods a. Environmental Reporting Scorecard Refer to the Balanced Scorecard.

Management tools 1. EMAS EMAS is like a trademark. EMAS is a management tool for companies and other organisations to evaluate, report and improve their environmental performance. Participation in the scheme is voluntary and extends to public or private organisations operating in the European Union and the European Economic Area (EEA). An increasing number of candidate countries are also implementing the scheme in preparation for their accession to the EU. 2. ISO 14001 ISO 14000 is a series of voluntary standards on environmental management tools and systems developed and maintained by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization. The ISO 14000 series includes standards on environmental auditing, life cycle analysis, environmental performance evaluation, and more. Often, when people talk about ISO 14000, they are actually referring to one standard in the series: ISO 14001 - Environmental Management Systems - Specification with Guidance for Use EMAS and ISO 14001 are not very different; EMAS has two significant elements more than ISO 14001, namely a baseline environmental assessment and a public environmental performance report. EMAS standard is more performance-based than ISO 14001 but the two systems can be bridged.

Technological solutions 1. Green Engineering Green engineering is the design, commercialization, and use of processes and products, which are feasible and economical while minimizing 1) generation of pollution at the source and 2) risk to human health and the environment. Principles of Green Engineering: 1) Engineer processes and products holistically, use systems analysis, and integrate environmental impact assessment tools. 2) Conserve and improve natural ecosystems while protecting human health and wellbeing. 3) Use life-cycle thinking in all engineering activities. 7

4) Ensure that all material and energy inputs and outputs are as inherently safe and benign as possible. 5) Minimize depletion of natural resources. 6) Strive to prevent waste. 7) Develop and apply engineering solutions, while being cognizant of local geography, aspirations, and cultures. 8) Create engineering solutions beyond current or dominant technologies; improve, innovate, and invent (technologies) to achieve sustainability. 9) Actively engage communities and stakeholders in development of engineering solutions. 2. Green Process Design Green process design handles the following issues: What are the environmental performance issues to be addressed in the design of processes and products? What are the environmental issues, risk assessment and risk management, federal regulations, and the roles and responsibilities of chemical engineers, which must be taken into account? Types of wastes, emissions, raw material use, and energy use that will be employed to determine the environmental performance of chemical processes and products, must also be identified in green process design. There are tools for assessing the environmental profile of chemical processes and the design tools that can be used to improve environmental performance. These tools include release estimation approaches and pollution prevention strategies, total cost accounting, and green process design. In green process design it also must be considered what happens to a product or waste when it leaves the plant boundary? 3. Green Chemistry Green chemistry is the use of chemistry for pollution prevention. More specifically, green chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. Green chemistry is a highly effective approach to pollution prevention because it applies innovative scientific solutions to realworld environmental situations. 12 Principles of green chemistry: 1) Prevent waste: Design chemical syntheses to prevent waste, leaving no waste to treat or clean up. 2) Design safer chemicals and products: Design chemical products to be fully effective, yet have little or no toxicity. 3) Design less hazardous chemical syntheses: Design syntheses to use and generate substances with little or no toxicity to humans and the environment. 4) Use renewable feedstocks: Use raw materials and feedstocks that are renewable rather than depleting. Renewable feedstocks are often made from agricultural products or are the wastes of other processes; depleting feedstocks are made from fossil fuels (petroleum, natural gas, or coal) or are mined. 5) Use catalysts, not stoichiometric reagents: Minimize waste by using catalytic reactions. Catalysts are used in small amounts and can carry out a single reaction many 8

times. They are preferable to stoichiometric reagents, which are used in excess and work only once. 6) Avoid chemical derivatives: Avoid using blocking or protecting groups or any temporary modifications if possible. Derivatives use additional reagents and generate waste. 7) Maximize atom economy: Design syntheses so that the final product contains the maximum proportion of the starting materials. There should be few, if any, wasted atoms. 8) Use safer solvents and reaction conditions: Avoid using solvents, separation agents, or other auxiliary chemicals. If these chemicals are necessary, use innocuous chemicals. 9) Increase energy efficiency: Run chemical reactions at ambient temperature and pressure whenever possible. 10) Design chemicals and products to degrade after use: Design chemical products to break down to innocuous substances after use so that they do not accumulate in the environment. 11) Analyze in real time to prevent pollution: Include in-process real-time monitoring and control during syntheses to minimize or eliminate the formation of by-products. 12) Minimize the potential for accidents: Design chemicals and their forms (solid, liquid, or gas) to minimize the potential for chemical accidents including explosions, fires, and releases to the environment. 4. Industrial Ecology Industrial ecology is an idea of "an industrial ecosystem" in which "the use of energies and materials is optimized, wastes and pollution are minimized, and there is an economically viable role for every product of a manufacturing process Industrial ecology provides a powerful prism through which to examine the impact of industry and technology and associated changes in society and the economy on the biophysical environment. It examines local, regional and global uses and flows of materials and energy in products, processes, industrial sectors and economies and focuses on the potential role of industry in reducing environmental burdens throughout the product life cycle. Industrial ecology asks us to “understand how the industrial system works, how it is regulated, and its interaction with the biosphere; then, on the basis of what we know about ecosystems, to determine how it could be restructured to make it compatible with the way natural ecosystems function.” The field encompasses a variety of related areas of research and practice, including: - Material and energy flow studies ("industrial metabolism") - Dematerialization and decarbonization - Technological change and the environment - Life-cycle planning, design and assessment - Design for the environment ("eco-design") - Extended producer responsibility ("product stewardship") - Eco-industrial parks ("industrial symbiosis") - Product-oriented environmental policy - Eco-efficiency 9

5. Industrial Waste Management Technologies (waste water/solid waste mgmt) End-of-pipe technologies, which focus on waste treatment, tend to transform wastes from one form to another rather than achieving genuine waste reduction. In contrast, waste minimization strategies attempt to avoid the generation of waste in the first place and reuse or recycle as much remaining waste as possible. Source reduction is generally perceived as being the highest rung on the waste minimization ladder with the greatest potential for avoiding energy and raw material consumption as well as waste production. With respect to hazardous industrial waste, source reduction can refer not only to reduction of the volume or weight of waste but also to a reduction of toxicity. Many different approaches have been identified in the literature for reducing industrial waste at source. Waste materials generated during the production process can be reused or recycled both on-site (either in the plant or on the plant property) and off-site. "Reuse" means reusing a waste material directly, either for its original purpose or in a new role, without any major modification to the material before it is reused. Wastewater treatment refers to the on-site treatment of liquid effluents found in wastewaters from industrial sources. Wastewaters are excluded from most definitions of industrial hazardous waste, although wastewater treatment can result in the production of certain hazardous wastes such as sludges containing heavy metals. Water pollution control standards usually define the level of treatment that is required and, depending on the existence and strictness of the legislation, this level can range from none at all to extensive use of "end-of-pipe" technologies, which remove a wide variety of pollutants. In developed countries, there is still a good deal of illegal industrial waste disposal, but most industrial wastes are either sent to landfills (municipal landfills or special hazardous waste landfills), incinerated (in municipal incinerators or in special hazardous waste incinerators), sent for biological, chemical or physical treatment off-site (hazardous wastes only), exported for treatment or disposal (hazardous wastes only), or treated onsite with "end-of-pipe" technologies before being discharged to sewers and rivers. In contrast to developed countries, hazardous and non-hazardous wastes as well as liquid, solid and sludge wastes in developing countries tend to be mixed together with one another and with domestic wastes at disposal sites. The mixing of hazardous and nonhazardous wastes not only exacerbates problems of groundwater pollution from leakages, but it also poses a health risk to waste pickers who live and work at the disposal site. 6. Air Pollution Control Technologies Almost every modern production and manufacturing process is exhausting air with more or less high pollutants. Particulates, aerosols, odours and VOC (volatile organic compounds) are typical contents of process exhausts. To meet the strictly increasing rules and legislations, it is of essential importance to choose the right abatement technology and combine it with an economic plant design.

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7. Technologies for Recovery of Valuable Materials Recovering valuable materials from the waste stream benefits everybody: - Government agencies benefit by reducing operating costs eg. waste disposal costs through more efficient use of expensive resources - Industry benefits by gaining a source of valuable recovered waste materials and new markets for services and products - The community benefits from reduced waste costs and improved environmental quality - The environment benefits from reduced pressure on natural resources (eg. mining and forestry reserves) and impacts from waste disposal. Recovery of materials includes a number of actions or processes often lumped under the word ‘recycling’. Some of terms included under the broad heading of ‘recycling’: - Source separation – recyclable materials are separated at the point of generation (eg. an office or home) into different streams for recycling - Post-collection material sorting –recoverable materials are pulled out of mixed waste by machines or by hand at a specialised waste facility for recycling - Reuse – materials or products are used again without substantially changing their original shape or form. - Composting – organic wastes (food scraps, vegetation waste etc) are processed to make a range of organic products for. - Waste-to-energy – a range of technologies where waste is used as a fuel. It is sometimes used to generate electricity. - Where possible, contamination of recovered material with unrecyclable material should be minimised. This ensures clean raw materials are available to be remade into new products and keeps the cost of these products down. How to recover materials better? - Find out how wastes are managed in your organisation. Look at: o Types and quantities of waste being generated o Waste management and recycling infrastructure (eg types of bins used, where they are located etc) o Who provides waste services to your organisation o How and where it is disposed of and o How much it costs to dispose of your waste. - You may need to identify and work on a particular waste stream to start with. - Quantify amounts of waste and materials being recovered. The best way to do this is by doing a waste audit. - Identify where valuable recoverable materials are being put into the general waste stream. - Identify where the greatest potential improvements can be made to the existing system. This could be in terms of reducing cross contamination, increasing recycling rates, improving services provided by contract cleaners etc. - Consider the alternative uses that can be made of existing wastes to turn them into a resource for your or other organisations to use . - Prioritise – tackle a couple of easy wastes first and then move on to larger or more difficult ones. 11

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Identify key players and stakeholders managing waste and recycling systems and work with them to improve practices. Educate staff, management and contractors on proposed improvements to waste management and recovery systems.

8. BAT/BREF Best Available Technologies (BAT). Best Available Technologies are related to EU Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control directive. BAT information is collected in different EU countries, and exchanged between them. BAT Reference Document (BREF). According to the exchanged BAT information, BREF documents are prepared. BREF documents are guidelines to good technology.

Framework 1. Environmental laws and regulations Environmental laws and regulations are an important framework, within which the companies must operate. Those are also important means to introduce sustainable development and cleaner production methods within a society.

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