Environmentally Improved Production Processes and Products: An Introduction

1. Technology as a partial solution to environmental problems.- 1.1 Introduction.- 1.2 Natural Resources.- 1.3 Pollution.- 1.4 Loss of (living) nature.- 1.5 Sustainable industrial society.- 1.6 The contribution of technology.- 1.7 Environmental improvements in the North and in the South.- References.- 2. Government intervention favouring environmental improvement of products and production processes.- 2.1 Introduction.- 2.2 What governments can do to stimulate environmentally improved products and production processes.- References.- 3. Environmentally improved products.- 3.1 Organizing for product improvement.- 3.2 Sustainable resource use.- 3.3 Environmental screening of products.- 3.4 Improvement of products on the basis of Life Cycle Analysis (LCA).- 3.5 Checklists, rules of the thumb and approaches concentrating on major environmental impacts of products.- 3.6 Toxics use reduction.- 3.7 Design for closed-loop use.- 3.8 Extension of useful product lifetime.- 3.9 Using standards for improved products.- 3.10 Measurement of product improvement.- References.- 4. Environmentally improved production processes.- 4.1 Organizing for cleaner technology.- 4.2 Methodology for the generation and implementation of cleaner technology options.- 4.3 Opportunities for cleaner production.- 4.4 Evaluation of environmental benefits of cleaner technology.- References.- Concluding remarks.- Acknowledgement.