We question the prevailing assumption that energy efficiency measures are always the more cost-effective measures for improving resource efficiency in manufacturing companies. We do this by analyzing ...data about potential reductions in energy, water, and raw material use in 58 companies. The data were collected by United Nations Industrial Development Organization country teams that implemented a Transfer of Environmentally Sound Technology project in three North African countries (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia). Our analysis of approximately 650 measures finds that there are equally attractive measures across all three resources in terms of their payback periods and use reductions. We also find both significant similarities and differences in payback periods and reductions in resource use across manufacturing sectors and countries. Based on our findings, we recommend that those who undertake energy audits and cleaner production assessments investigate in their work the potential savings and use reductions for water and raw material measures in addition to those for energy.
•The TEST methodology combines three analytical tools to identify efficiency measures (84).•The TEST methodology expands the potential number of resource efficiency measures (82).•Water and material measures can have higher payback periods than energy measures (83).•Reductions in water and raw material use can exceed reductions in energy use (78).
The polluter-pays principle has been widely implemented in OECD countries and credited for bring about a significant reduction in pollutant discharge. However, it has had only limited implementation ...in developing countries. The consequences of not implementing it in developing countries, to the extent they are documented, are limited to estimating the economic damages of environmental degradation. Yet there are several other but seldom documented negative consequences of the failure to implement the polluter-pays principle. These consequences are documented in the case of Pakistan. They include limited construction of effluent treatment plants, heavy dependence on the government and international donors for funding the only two operational common effluent treatment plants, significant operational issues at the two common effluent treatment plants, missed opportunities to build cost-effective common effluent treatment plants and minimal environmental improvements from isolated investments in individual effluent treatment plants in addition to the already documented significant level of environmental degradation due to uncontrolled pollutant discharge.
In the framework of their joint global Cleaner Production Programme, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme officially established the ...first eight National Cleaner Production Centres in 1995. In 2015 there are 58 centres operating in 56 countries. This article, based on a 2014 structured questionnaire completed by 41 out of the 50 centres established between 1995 and 2011, reports on how their expectations about a world-wide programme played out over the 20 years since its official launch. Two of their twelve expectations were exceeded; five were met; two were partially met and two were not met. Four unanticipated activities expanded the environmental services provided by the centres. Meeting the two documented unmet expectations—that the services should green entire industrial sectors and result in measurable improvements in environmental quality—will require the centres to deepen their effective impact on entire industrial sectors by scaling up the application of Cleaner Production and mainstreaming its policy, financial and related incentives. They will need to take on catalytic roles in nationally significant strategies for the resource-efficient greening of industry, which would require finding a balance between public good service delivery, aimed at putting cleaner production and resource efficiency on the agenda of industry, and applied sector and company specific service delivery for revenue generation and the benefit of companies.
•There were eight National Cleaner Production Centres in 1995 and are 58 in 2015.•Centres continue to focus on four core cleaner production services.•Centres offer other environmental services that generate revenue.•Services provided by center have yet to green an entire manufacturing sub-sector.•Centres need to take on a catalytic role in greening industry.
Membranes with precisely adjustable properties are needed to master the separation challenges in modern biochemical processes. Composite membranes are composed of a conventional membrane and an ...adaptive coating. Adaptive polymers like polymer brushes or hydrogels have proven to be excellent candidates for this challenge. In the present work we envision the utilization of temperature responsive microgels as colloidal building blocks, forming an adaptive separation layer on top of a porous support. Until now, microgels are mainly used as a functional gating element, influencing the retention or permeability of conventional membranes. In the present study microgel assemblies should be used as the only selective layer. To overcome the repulsive forces between the microgel particles, we utilize the interparticle crosslinking within a microgel filter cake. We could show that the crosslinking leads to stable and responsive microgel multilayers with a temperature responsive retention performance based on charge repulsion and size exclusion. The developed methodology enables the control of the filter cake compression, which can be adjusted and preserved via crosslinking enabling full control over the thickness and density of the selective layer. While the resistance of the crosslinked microgel multilayer shows the classical temperature responsiveness and collapse into a low resistance state, the retention increases simultaneously, indicating that the crosslinked microgels behave like a macroscopic hydrogel.
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•Microgel multilayer membranes are synthesized via filtration and in-situ crosslinking.•Methodology enables full control over the thickness and density of the selective layer.•Temperature responsive retention based on charge repulsion and size exclusion.•Increased permeability and retention above the VPTT.•Crosslinked microgel multilayer behaves like a macroscopic hydrogel.
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) jointly initiated the National Cleaner Production Centres (NCPCs) programme in 1995 ...with the funding of eight centres. The centres and the CP assessors trained by them do not deliver ready-made solutions, but rather they train and advise their clients on how to find the best solutions for specific problems. Two UNIDO evaluations of the programme confirm that the methodology for implementing the CP concept at the factory level is an effective tool for identification and prioritisation of technology changes that yield both environmental and financial benefits. However, the dissemination and application of the CP concept to small and medium size (SMEs) on the basis of its own financial merits does not occur easily; hence, there is a need to support the dissemination of the concept through promotional (awareness raising, training) activities, national policy formulation and access to financing.
A survey was undertaken in 2016 of key informants in seven Sub-Saharan African countries about why there had been limited greening of industry in their countries. The results of this survey, combined ...with analysis of earlier studies drawn from a focused SSA literature review, find a multitude of relevant factors that act as drivers for, barriers to, and enablers for changing managerial attitudes and strategies on greening. The dominant cluster of drivers involves material costs, both the high costs of inputs and the related need for cost savings. The dominant cluster of barriers relates to the lack of information. Enablers, who play an important and essential role in lowering the barriers in firms to greening, figure weakly in the 11 reports considered. This possibly reflects the lack of effective government programmes that are essential for accelerating the greening of industry as called for in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
In reviewing the journal literature on the decoupling of energy use and industrial output in the Asian region, particularly with respect to developing countries, we found little information about ...most country programs other than for China and India and only one article that compared the programs of these two countries. For this reason, we used diverse sources to identify the key programmatic features that have contributed, but clearly are not totally responsible for, decoupling achievements of two countries ( China and Thailand) and then, on the basis of these findings, reviewed emerging industrial energy decoupling programs in four other countries (India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam). We found that the design of the two successful on-going decoupling programs have common features, which are setting an explicit target for decoupling of energy use and industrial output, a government program that offers financial incentives and imposes specific auditing and reporting requirements and involvement of the manufacturing sector in designing and implementing targets as they apply to individual enterprises. We also found that the emerging programs in the other four countries lack some or all of these essential programmatic features.
► We reviewed two on-going and four emerging industrial energy decoupling programs. ► These six Asian developing countries have very different rates of decoupling. ► The two successful on-going programs share three common features. ► These are quantitative targets, supportive programs and industry involvement. ► The four emerging programs lack some or all of these features.
Given the need to reduce the CO
2 emissions coming from the manufacturing sector, it is important, for planning purposes, to know which countries and which manufacturing sub-sectors have the greatest ...potential for reducing energy use. Using data from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the authors estimate trends in global decoupling of energy use and manufacturing value added, compare energy-use intensity in six country groups and estimate the potential for reducing energy use and CO
2 emissions under two scenarios and compare selected sub-sector energy intensity and estimate the potential for reducing energy use CO
2 emissions. The comparison of energy intensities across country groups and among countries suggests that there still remains significant potential to reduce energy use and associated CO
2 emissions. The analysis of four sub-sectors in developing and transition economies also shows similar but varied potential for reducing energy use and associated CO
2 emissions.
