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2.4 - Clean Technology

Legislation and public pressure are pushing manufacturers to reduce their environmental impact through cleaner production methods. Governments set laws limiting waste and pollution, while communities protest manufacturers harming the environment. Internationally, agreements like the Paris Accords set emission quotas for countries. Manufacturers implement incremental changes over time or more radical solutions to comply with these standards and reduce their environmental footprint.

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18 views3 pages

2.4 - Clean Technology

Legislation and public pressure are pushing manufacturers to reduce their environmental impact through cleaner production methods. Governments set laws limiting waste and pollution, while communities protest manufacturers harming the environment. Internationally, agreements like the Paris Accords set emission quotas for countries. Manufacturers implement incremental changes over time or more radical solutions to comply with these standards and reduce their environmental footprint.

Uploaded by

Sara
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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2.

4 - Clean Technology

As humanity continues to further develop itself, the usage of earth’s resources has increased
exponentially and has resulted in a lifestyle, which has led many people to completely neglect
the idea of responsible resource stewardship.

Drivers for cleaning up manufacturing


There are many drivers that make manufacturers reconsider their methods of production to
reduce their impact on the earth. The 2 main drivers for it are:
Legislation from government
- These days, governments around the world have made it so that manufacturers have to
be more responsible for their products and the byproducts produced as well.
- Some legislations focus on the waste collection and handling, the safe usage of
chemicals where necessary and the cleanup that is required for any particular product.
- If manufacturers do not adhere to the legislations that have been set, they can face
criminal charges as well as large fines depending on the offence that has occured.
- Many manufacturers do as much as they can to follow legislation so that they can avoid
the consequences of not following them as the penalties that they would have to buy
could number in the billions.

Pressure created by the local community and media


- Consumers in general have recently become accustomed to the idea of helping the
earth and they like to do this by buying products that do not have such huge impacts on
the earth and strive to make the world better in terms of reducing the effects of mankind.
- It is because of this the consumers form groups to protest against the actions of a
manufacture if their methods do in fact harm the environment in some way.
- This can cause boycotts towards the products of certain manufacturers and that could
last for an untold amount of time.
- This kind of pressure would lead to serious drop in revenue for a manufacturer and
would most certainly result the manufacturer being forced to change their methods.
- Pressure from certain groups such as Greenpeace or the World Wildlife Fund sometimes
end up in petitions to the government to set up new legislations as a way to force
manufacturers to change their methods.
While manufacturers are often pressured into changing their methods to reduce the impact on
the environment, there are many logical reasons from them do so such as:
- Promoting positive impacts
- Ensuring neutral impact of minimizing negative impacts through conserving natural
resources
- Reducing pollution and use of energy (results in more income saved)
- Reducing wastage of energy and resources (more income is saved)
International legislation and targets for reducing pollution and waste
We have explored how governments can set laws that limit the amount of waste a manufacturer
can make and even state how what kind of methods can be used. However, that kind of
approach is brought to the next level when we look at it from an international level.
- International targets are set up among nations and agree upon in writing. These
agreements can limit the amount of carbon emission produced within a country
- Legislations are different from international agreements up to a certain point as they are
directed to governments and it is up to governments to enforce them
- The Paris Accords and the Kyoto Protocol are some examples of international legislation
- Countries are sometimes given quotas to the amount of pollutants they can produce and
they should not produce any more past the set amount
- Some countries find loopholes in such agreements by helping reduce emissions in other
countries by carrying out activities like replanting an entire forest that was cut down

End-of-Pipe technologies
- Represents technology that has been specifically designed to reduce pollutants and
emissions generated at the end of any production process
- For example, many factories that produce carbon emissions as a byproduct of the
production process have filters attached to the funnels, which clean as much of the
contaminated air as possible
- It is not targeted at every production process in the world as certain types of pollutants
cannot be handled efficiently
- Production processes with end-of-pipe technologies often include water, energy,
manufacturing, advanced materials and transportation

Incremental and radical solutions


Production systems are improved in terms of efficiency and amount of embodied energy over
time. This can be summarized in 2 ways:
Incremental
- Incremental solutions is when changes are made to a system over a long period of time
and each part of system is replaced one by one
- Since it takes a long time, it gives a company time to plan out the changes needed and
when to make the changes as it would take a while for a new part to work well in a
system and that would lead to complications in the production process, which would also
mean a drop in revenue

Advantages
- Use of existing technologies (changes made to said system over time)
- No interruptions in production
- No uncertainty for success due to the technology

Disadvantages
- Takes too long
- Small changes may not meet legal requirements for a specific system

Radical solutions
- Radical solutions are the complete opposite of incremental solutions
- It consists of taking apart the whole existing system at once and replacing it with
something new
- The technology used in radical solutions are often new and untested
- Radical solutions show changes almost immediately

Advantages
- Exploration of new technologies
- High potential for market growth
- Creation of new industries
- Fewer competitors

Disadvantages
- Costly
- High uncertainty for success
- Possibility of high market resistance
- Development unpredictable
- Interruptions in production line

System level solutions


- System level solutions are somewhat similar to end-of-pipe technologies
- The difference between them is that end-of-pipes are aimed at reducing the pollutants
released in the atmosphere, system level solutions aims to remove pollutants completely
by not generating them at all
- It is often done by carrying out radical implementation of a system as current systems
can’t do what system level solutions want

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