Environmentally Improved Production Processes and Products introduces students at institutes of higher education, company management, civil servants, professional designers and process engineers to the field of environmentally oriented product and process improvement. The book deals with improvements that are integrated into processes and products. It differs from other books currently available in that it covers both production and products. It is also different because both social/economic and technical aspects of the improvement of products and production processes are dealt with, rather than the more usual focus either on technical or on social and/or economic aspects. Another characteristic is the wide range of production processes and products covered, ranging from bakeries to olive growing, from nuclear power plants to glues, from office chairs to breweries, and from television sets to steel plants. Geographical coverage ranges from Sweden to China and from India to Italy and the USA.

Klappentext

emEnvironmentally Improved Production Processes and Products/em introduces students at institutes of higher education, company management, civil servants, professional designers and process engineers to the field of environmentally oriented product and process improvement. The book deals with improvements that are integrated into processes and products. It differs from other books currently available in that it covers both production emand/em products. It is also different because both social/economic and technical aspects of the improvement of products and production processes are dealt with, rather than the more usual focus either on technical or on social and/or economic aspects. Another characteristic is the wide range of production processes and products covered, ranging from bakeries to olive growing, from nuclear power plants to glues, from office chairs to breweries, and from television sets to steel plants. Geographical coverage ranges from Sweden to China and from India to Italy and the USA.

Inhalt

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.