CLEANER PRODUCTION

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On the evolution of “CLEANER PRODUCTION” as a concept and a practice Article in Journal of Cleaner Production · November 2017 DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.11.082

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Accepted Manuscript On the evolution of “CLEANER PRODUCTION” as a concept and a practice

L. Hens, C. Block, J.J. Cabello-Eras, A. Sagastume-Gutierez, D. Garcia-Lorenzo, C. Chamoro, H. Mendoza, D. Haeseldonckx, C. Vandecasteele PII:

S0959-6526(17)32742-7

DOI:

10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.11.082

Reference:

JCLP 11221

To appear in:

Journal of Cleaner Production

Received Date:

21 July 2017

Revised Date:

05 November 2017

Accepted Date:

11 November 2017

Please cite this article as: L. Hens, C. Block, J.J. Cabello-Eras, A. Sagastume-Gutierez, D. GarciaLorenzo, C. Chamoro, H. Mendoza, D. Haeseldonckx, C. Vandecasteele, On the evolution of “CLEANER PRODUCTION” as a concept and a practice, Journal of Cleaner Production (2017), doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.11.082

This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT On the evolution of “CLEANER PRODUCTION” as a concept and a practice HENS L.

a*,

BLOCK C.b , CABELLO-ERAS J.J. c,d, SAGASTUME-GUTIEREZ A. c,d , GARCIA-LORENZO D. CHAMORO C. c, MENDOZA H. c , HAESELDONCKX D. e, VANDECASTEELE C. e

d,

a.Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek (VITO), Mol, Belgium b. 2C ECOSOLUTIONS, Oud-Heverlee, Belgium c. Universidad de la Costa (CUC), Baranquilla, Colombia d. Universidad de Cienfuegos (UCf), Cuba e. University of Leuven (KULeuven), Leuven, Belgium *Corresponding author, [email protected]

Abstract “Cleaner Production“(CP) is about less and more efficient energy and materials use and the substitution of more harmful products (for the environment and health) by less dangerous ones. CP was the reply of the industry to the call for sustainable development as launched by the WCED (1987) and further elaborated in Rio’s Agenda 21 (UN, 1992). During the past 25 years, the concept was put in practice. During this period it changed in scope, methods, and application area. This provided a deeper socio-economic impact to an idea that was originally launched to awaken industry on its environmental responsibilities. This paper provides a review of essentials that contributed to the fundamental changes in CP during the most recent quarter of a century. It takes off with a review of CP definitions illustrating the changes of the content. Changes in scope are exemplified with the increasing importance of “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR). This includes that postmodern companies have not only responsibilities on their economic performance and the environment, but should also act on issues including human rights and resources, business ethics, and community involvement. The links between CP and green and circular economy are indicated. The CP approach is increasingly applied outside the industry. CP for sustainable tourism is discussed in more detail but is only an example of the wider application in e.g. agriculture or health services. This widening of contents necessitates more and better-adapted methods supporting the measurement of the CP components. Indicators, assessment strategies, and green accounting are increasingly improved and used more specifically and frequently. This evolution is discussed in a context of a dilution of the original environmental targets in a wider, more societal scope and the transition towards a more responsible, proactive and reliable management of the sectors applying CP. Keywords: Cleaner production, corporate social responsibility, renewable energy, sustainable tourism, smart city.

1. Introduction “Cleaner production” emerged as a practical way to make industry aware of its substandard management of environmental issues during the interbellum period and the first decades following the Second World War. A series of major accidents occurred in which the Meuse Valley inversion and fog accident in Belgium in 1930 (Batta, 1933; Nemery et al., 2001), the dioxin emissions in Seveso, Italy caused by ICMESA/Roche in 1976 (Hens et al., 2016), the Union Carbide pesticide disaster in Bhopal, India in 1984, which is considered the world’s worst industrial disaster with around16000 deaths in total (Lapierre and Moro, 2004), and the nuclear disaster in Fukushima (Japan) in 2011, became textbook examples. These major events all caused serious damage to the environment and human health (Friis, 2007). They were of importance for both acute and chronic, long term effects.

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT As significant was the growing insight on the environment and health hazards caused by asbestos, benzene, mono vinyl chloride, heavy metals, PCBs and dioxins, listing just these examples (EEA Copenhagen, 2001). In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development launched the report ‘Our Common Future’ (Brundtland Report; WCED, 1987). The main conclusion of the report was that the major environmental problems were a consequence of poverty in one part of the world and unsustainable consumption and production in the other. The report, therefore, proposed to strive for sustainable development (SD): ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (WCED, 1987). The concept has 3 pillars: economic viability, protection of the environment and social and ethical acceptance. The “Brundtland report” aims at improving environmental quality, safeguarding biodiversity, and protecting human and ecosystem health. All socio-economic sectors should contribute to these goals promoting a sustainable development. The concept of CP was developed during the preparation of the Rio Conference (UN, 1992). UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program) developed in 1991 the often cited definition: “CP is the continuous application of an integrated preventive environmental strategy to processes, products, and services to increase efficiency and reduce risks to humans and the environment”. It was meant to reduce the environmental impact of industry and built among others on ideas from the 3P concept (pollution prevention pays). Whereas sustainable development is a goal for a wide array of target groups (population, consumers, businesses, among others), CP is directed to business, industry (processes, products) and service. The original definition points primarily to technical aspects: CP strategies are fundamentally concerned with operations, environmental sustainability and maximization of waste reduction, recycling, and reuse at the enterprise level, and are thus micro economic in scope” (Khalili, 2015). During the past 25 years, the vision on CP changed considerably, in scope, content and the range of sectors applying the approach. This widening content necessitated new methods to address the range of aspect of sustainable development which emerged. Also, the targets moved: from less pollution and waste generation mainly during the production, over design of products with less environmental impact, to sustainable tourism, environmentally sound healthcare, and quality of life in green and smart cities.

Cleaner production (CP)

Definitions (2.1)

Corporate Social Responsibility (2.2)

Green economy (2.3)

Smart city (2.6)

Circular economy (2.4)

Service sectors (2.5) e.g. tourism

Figure 1: The deepening and the widening of the changes in scope of the CP concept and their application as discussed in this paper. The numbers between brackets refer to the sections in the corpus of this paper.

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This paper reviews these changes in scope, methods, and targets. It starts with a review of selected definitions, illustrating the changing fundamental thoughts of the concept. The relations of CP with “green” and “circular economy” are addressed. They illustrate how the CP concept was deepened and linked with other concepts which came on the forefront since the 1992 Conference on Environment and Development (UN, 1992) The paper further puts emphasis on the move of environmental management systems (EMS) towards corporate social responsibility (CSR), on the appeal for CP in non-industrial sectors (as administration, banking and health care), on the array of nowadays assessment and monitoring methods, complementary to environmental management systems, and on targeting a more environment saving tourism and urban quality of life. Dealing with these changes in scope, the paper is structured in two main parts (figure 1): (1) Deepening the concept is illustrated by analyzing CP definitions over the last 18 years, together with the relations of CP with “green” and “circular economy”. (2) A second main change concerns the widening of the application of CP. Originally meant as a reply of industry to the call for sustainable development, the concept was gradually wider applied in business (corporate social responsibility), the service sector (as tourism and health care), and in the move to green, smart cities. These are equally the main sections analyzed in this paper in a CP context.

2. Changes in scope and application field 2.1 Changing definitions and expansion of the concept Dealing with environmental problems caused by industry in the 1970s put emphasis on pollution abatement, treatment of emissions and effluents using so called end-of-pipe techniques before releasing to the environment. The costs of the control of industrial pollution and of monitoring compliance with the even more stringent legal requirements increased continuously and for industrialized countries typically reached 0.8 to 1.7% of the GNP over the period 1972-1986. During the second half of the 1970s the concept of low and non-waste technologies emerged, and the emphasis shifted to pollution prevention rather than pollution treatment. (El-Kholy, 2002) Perhaps in response to this shift of emphasis The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) developed in 1989 the first definition of CP given in Table 1. This definition deserves some specifications: 1. CP is defined as a strategy, i.e., it extends well beyond technical fixes, and is more than an isolated audit. 2. It is preventive, not so much end-of–pipe technology is aimed at, rather the reduction of waste and emissions at the source. 3. CP is integrated, does not isolate and concentrate on only one aspect of the problem. 4. The continuity of the CP effort is emphasized: one can always do better, there is always room for improvement. Technologies can always be cleaner, the ultimate ideal goal being a technology that produces no pollution at all. 5. CP is about processes, products, and services as fields of application. 6. Although it is not stated in the definition the scope of the analysis should extend downstream of manufacturing and use of a product to its disposal

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT as waste; and upstream to the supply side and the pollution produced in extracting and processing the inputs of raw materials and semi-finished goods. CP has to consider the whole life cycle (so-called cradle to grave analysis). This original definition of CP has been adapted/modified/expanded in different ways; an overview of the most frequently mentioned definitions is given in table1. Table 1: Definitions of Cleaner Production 1. CP is the continuous application of an integrated preventive environmental strategy applied to processes, products and services to increase overall efficiency, and reduce risks to humans and the environment

-United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP/IEO), 1990

2. CP is the conceptual and procedural approach to production that demands that all phases of the life cycle of a product or of a process should be addressed with the objective of prevention or the minimisation of short and long-term risks to humans and the environment. A total societal commitment is required for effecting this comprehensive approach achieving the goal of a sustainable society

1st European Roundtable on Cleaner Production Programmes, 1994

3.CP is the continuous application of an integrated, preventive strategy applied to processes, products and services in pursuit of economic, social, health, safety and environmental benefits.

UNEP, International declaration on cleaner production, 1998

4.CP is a preventive strategy to minimize the impact of production and products on the environment. The principal actors are the companies, which control the production processes. They are influenced strongly by their customers and politics. 5. CP is a systematically organized approach to production activities, which has positive effects on the environment. These activities encompass resource use minimization, improved eco-efficiency and source reduction, in order to improve the environmental protection and to reduce risks to living organisms. It can be applied to processes used in any industrial sector and to products themselves (cleaner products). 6.CP is a preventative approach to managing the environmental impacts of business processes and products. CP uses changes in technology, processes, resources or practices to reduce waste, environmental and health risks; minimise environmental damage; use energy and resources more efficiently; increase business profitability and competitiveness; and increase the efficiency

Fresner, 1998

Glavic and Lukman, 2007

SD Features, accessed 2017

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 7.CP is manufacturing in which waste minimization and prevention practices are continuously applied. These practices include (1) conservation of raw materials and energy, (2) elimination of toxic inputs, and (3) reduction in toxic outputs

Business Directory, accessed 2017

8.CP is a preventive, company-specific environmental protection initiative. It is intended to minimize waste and emissions and maximize product output.

Yaacoob and Fresner, 2006

9. CP is a preventive, integrated continuous strategy applied to products, processes, and services, to enhance efficiency, which improves environmental performance and reduces costs

Kaunas University of Technology Lithuania, 2017

10. Cleaner technologies are technologies that extract and use natural resources as efficiently as possible in all stages of their lives; that generate products with reduced or no potentially harmful components; that minimise releases to air, water and soil during fabrication and use of the product; and that produce durable products which can be recovered or recycled as far as possible; output is achieved with as little energy input as is possible

European Commission, Review of cleaner production, 2017

Definition 2 offers an alternative to the UNEP definition (definition 1) and mentions that CP is not only about concepts but also about procedures. Moreover, it is stated explicitly that all phases of the life cycle analysis have to be addressed. Only processes and products are considered by the definition. New is also that it stresses societal commitment: business alone can e.g. develop new, more environmentally benign products, but it is society which decides to buy these. The definition does however not explicitly indicate that CP is also about increasing resource-efficiency, it just mentions reduction of risks to humans and the environment. The third definition stems from the international declaration on cleaner production of 1998. It starts similar to the first, but the aims are formulated much broader to embrace the 3 pillars of sustainability: economic, social (including health and safety) and environmental. The introduction of economic benefits is new. The fourth definition mentions only production and products and stresses that the principal actors are the companies, which control the production processes, but strongly influenced by their customers and by politics. For services it is recommended speaking about cleaner services. Definition 5 limits CP formally to processes in any industrial sector and to products. It clearly states the targets of CP: resource use minimization, improving eco-efficiency, and source reduction. The definition of SD features (definition 6) is rather exhaustive as it enumerates the aims of the CP activities: reduce waste and environmental and health risks; minimise environmental damage; use energy and resources more efficiently; increase business profitability and competitiveness; and increase the efficiency.

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Note the inclusion of increasing business profitability and competitiveness as an aim. Definition 7 is mainly technical and limited in scope. Definition 8 only mentions technical benefits: less waste, fewer emissions and maximal product output. It also mentions waste heat and noise as an addition to the previous descriptions. The 9th definition is similar to definition 1, but mentions cost reduction. The 10th definition defines cleaner technologies as technologies characterized by efficient extraction and use of natural resources; reduced generation of harmful components; minimal releases to air, water and soil; producing durable products which can be recovered or recycled as far as possible; limit the energy input. Mentioning production of durable products suitable for recovery or recycling fits into the “circular economy” concept promoted by the European Commission (see section 2.4). The term Cleaner Production has been in common use since 1989. Definition 1 has been used as the working definition of all UNEP and UNIDO programmes related to the promotion of CP. Nonetheless, the confluence of the global economic and the environmental crisis that occurred in the last 2 decades has consolidated the understanding of the interdependence between economic and environmental systems. Moreover, the inefficient and at times the wasteful use of natural resources, including energy, water and materials, is at the heart of the key environmental challenges, including climate change. Therefore, UNIDO and UNEP in 2007/2008 broadened the definition of cleaner production to explicitly include resource efficiency, which is a key element of the transitions towards Green Industry and Green Economy and introduced the term Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production (RECP). This definition reads as follows: RECP entails the continuous application of integrated, preventive environmental strategies to processes, products, and services in order to increase efficiency and reduce risks to humans and the environment. RECP addresses the three sustainability dimensions individually and synergistically: a) heightened production efficiency and economic performance through improved productive use of natural resources (materials, energy, water) at all stages of the production cycle, b) environmental protection by conserving resources and through minimization of the adverse impacts of industrial production systems on nature and the environment, and c) human development and social enhancement through minimization of risks to people and communities, and support to their development, e.g. by providing jobs and protecting the well-being of workers and local communities (UNIDO, accessed in July 2017; United Nations Environment Programme accessed in July 2017). This definition explicitly mentions production efficiency (which was actually already meant by ‘efficiency’ in the original definition), clearly mentions materials, energy and water as natural resources and mentions also communities and support to their development. Moreover, as in the original definition on which it builds (definition 1), it continues to include services (UNEP DTIE). Consecutively, the joint UNIDO-UNEP global RECP program was formulated and approved in 2009. In summary, over about 20 years, the definition of CP remained essentially the same, but gradually more attention was given to resource efficiency, to the social

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT dimension of sustainability (support to the development of people and communities, e.g. by providing jobs and protecting the well-being of workers and local communities), to the economic dimension (heightened production efficiency, reduced costs, business profitability and competitiveness), while the environmental aspect remained central. To date, CP (or RECP) is seen as the business strategy to contribute to the 3 dimensions of sustainable development 2.2 Corporate social responsibility (CSR) Post-modern companies realize that their role in society goes beyond making a profit and running the backing financial management. Originally environmental management systems (EMS) mainly targeted achieving legal compliance. Since the 1960s-1970s companies faced increasing numbers and an increasing complexity of environmental regulations. Legal imperatives were complemented with permits and voluntary schemes (e.g. on certification). Not all companies managed to keep up with this evolution and found themselves after some years in a situation in which they violated different legal regulations. Strengthening maintenance of environmental laws and prosecution of infractions, resulted in EMS approaches, primarily targeted at legal compliance. Today most companies developed a policy going beyond respecting the (legal) regulations and adopted a more proactive attitude than before on environmental impacts. The consecutive character of the management cycles allows companies e.g. emitting less acidifying substances, volatile organic products, and releasing less and less polluting waste water as described in their permits. Moreover, since the 1990s companies not only address their environmental responsibilities using environmental management systems, but they also address human resources and management, union rights, relationships with the local communities, and ethical issues. No generally accepted CSR standard exists, and the different types of companies necessitate specific requirements. To address the environmental aspects of a CSR company, existing systems handle the following elements: -

-

-

-

A vision and a commitment to environmental policy by the top management. A certified EMS, definitely of the most impacting sites. Certification of the EMS motivates the internal stakeholders, but also shows the outer world that the company runs an EMS according to the best available international standards. Next to ISO14001 or EMAS, which cover the full spectrum of the system, certification systems as BREEM or LEED focus on particular aspects as environmentally sound buildings or energy consumption. Management of environmental risks: A declining incidence of environmental accidents provides a reliable indicator for this key aspect in accident prone organizations. Related is the care a company provides to clean up and restore the impacts of previous accidents. Impacts on biodiversity, their remediation, and if applicable the restauration of damaged sites. “Green” products show a variety of aspects reflecting the DNA of the company: From IT-software to reduce CO2-emissions, over FSC-certified timber and locally grown organic food, to degradable washing products, listing only a few examples. Environmental performance addresses air, water, and soil pollution, next to company specific aspects on waste (see table 1) and land use, among others. Also the environmental performance of the mobility of products and personnel should be assessed in terms of transport mix and pollution emission trends. (Manners, 2014)

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Complementary to these general criteria, specific sector-bound aspects should be taken into account: A fine chemicals cosmetics or pharmaceutical company faces other environmental impacts than a company producing mechanical devices, and this latter differs from a railway company. Companies are motivated to join these CSR dynamics, not only because of their sustainable responsibilities. Corporate social investment (CSI) funds, although still limited in absolute value, are among the fastest growing sectors on auction markets worldwide. Today and in the near future CSR companies, through this vehicle of funds, will obtain easier access to capital, providing them a competitive advantage on their non-CSR competing organizations. CSR should not be limited to industry. Other production sectors might also significantly benefit from CSR-based approaches. Contemporary agriculture and husbandry face important challenges of energy consumption and (chemical, including pharmaceutical and fertilizer) inputs. Striving towards sustainability, industrialized agriculture might take advantage of applying CP principles to limit its energy and other inputs (e.g. chemicals), contributing to biodiversity conservation while generating less (water, air, and soil) pollution, microbial resistance, and environmentally more sound outputs. What applies to the environment equally applies to husbandry. The evidence grows that industrial meat production (e.g. chicken farming) endangers workers, animals, and consumers (Silbergeld, 2016). What applies to agriculture and husbandry equally applies to forestry and aquaculture, listing just these sectors. CSR (sometimes rebranded as corporate sustainability) and CP as part of sustainable development (SD) mirror and complement each other. Today CSR is the prevailing way business and industry respond to SD (Thiel, 2015). This offers important new opportunities. The concepts of CSR dovetail in different theories and scientific traditions. These include: economy (competitive advantage, marketing), sociology (public responsibility, stakeholder theory), ethics (abstain from negatively impacting activities, corporate behavior), management (workforce management, integrated control of processes), law (universal human rights, legal compliance, controversy responses), but definitely also in environmental performance (air, water, soil, waste, energy, biodiversity, transport) and resource efficiency of which CP is an intrinsic component. In addition, some of the social aspects of CSR were already considered in the later definitions of CP. Implementing CSR necessitates two accompanying aspects: (1) Adopting an environmental and social accounting system: A basic aspect of running an EMS in combination with the wider CSR aspects necessitates verifiable reporting on the performance of the system. The results of this activity are of use for the company both to verify the CSR targets set in the past, to refine and adjust them for the future, and to communicate the results to other target groups as auction holders, authorities and the public at large. Methods measuring the environmental and social performance of companies were established and developed during the last half a century (Aras, 2015) and are commonly known under the heading “sustainability accounting”. While the environmental methods were already partially established by the 1970s, the factors that lead the social domain in CSR have been described more recently. Nevertheless they are most important in describing and understanding the reciprocal character between local communities and the company (Thiel, 2015). Environmental accounting, which is an important part of this approach is further developed in box 1.

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT (2) Corporate social investment (CSI): This is one of the drivers of the system. CSI makes use of sustainable investment funds. These handle criteria which in an explicit, systematic and balanced way handle social responsibility criteria (ecological, ethical, labor rights related, community involvement, corporate management) for the selection the companies in which they invest. Most funds also handle exclusion criteria: They do not invest in arms, tobacco, alcohol or nuclear, listing just these examples. The selection of these companies is based on the accounting data provided by the companies. In spite of the attraction of the idea, CSR is still in the process of development and consolidation. While in high –income economies a main focus these days is on detailing the relevant aspects, taking into account the specificity of the sectors (e.g. Amarjit, 2014), and the legal implementation of CSR (Luetkenhorst, 2004), the situation is different in developing countries. Pena-Vinces and Delgado-Marquez (2013) analyzed the state of the art in 100 Peruvian exporting companies. They showed that investing in CSR, in particular by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) does not automatically result in more profit. This is one of the reasons why SMEs do not pay attention to this practice of sustainability. On the other hand, the number of cases increases worldwide supporting the notion that non-profit social entrepreneurship can lead to alleviation of poverty (Halkias and Thurman, 2012). The study of Pena-Vinces and Delgado-Marquez (2013) also puts the focus on SMEs. Their relation of profitability and CSR is nuanced, as can be demonstrated with a few examples: (-) In SMEs in Europe and Asia both the social and the environmental dimension of CSR were shown to have a positive impact on the financial performance of SMEs. The social dimension of CSR indicates affecting the relationship the most. The effect was also more pronounced in Europe than in Asia (Bohlin and Wiebe, 2016). (-) Japanese SME case studies showed that the long term rate of return on CSR investment, with proper priority and prudent focus, is competitive. Most important in reaching CSR targets is the strategical formulation, the clear communication and the wide acceptance by the stakeholders (Park et al., 2017). This embryonic literature on CSR and SMEs further points to the evolving character of CSR. 2.3 Green economy Green economy (GE) is defined as the aggregate of all activities with the primary objective of minimizing all forms of environmental impact. This presumes the articulation of other disciplines that contribute to its main objective: green administration, green accounting, and green finance, among others. (ECO CANADA, 2010). GE can also be considered as a system of economic activities related to the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services that result in improved human wellbeing over the long term, while not exposing future generations to significant environmental risks and ecological scarcities (Fareed, 2012). GE contributes at using the natural capital efficiently by addressing not only economic but also social, organizational, cultural and educational aspects. GE became a buzzword in the aftermath of the Rio+20 Conference (UN, 2012). In the context of SD and poverty eradication it was an attempt to balance the economic value of “green policy”, and the concern that sustainable development should not disappear from the political agenda. The discussion highlighted once more that an increasing GNP was

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT not the best economic measure for sustainability and warned against the pitfalls of green washing and suspicious, insufficiently documented “green labeling”. It put emphasis on the beneficial economic aspects of investing in improved environmental management (including technical aspects as water and air treatment, and waste management) but also in their link with assessment, management, and monitoring. GE aims at joining economic security and environmental protection (Dodds and Strauss, 2012). GE is a complex, multi-dimensional concept which is closely linked with CP through factors as advanced green technology, green consumerism, green innovations, appropriate sustainability models, green and lean supply chain management, etc. (Tseng et al., 2013). Although the sustainable development ambitions of GE are high, the number of cases showing its limitations (e.g. in the recent German energy transition) increases (Weber and Cobraz, 2017; Borel-Saladin and Turak, 2013). 2.4 Circular economy Closely related to the idea of green economy, is the concept of circular economy (CE) which is inspired by ecological systems (European Commission, 2015a, b, 2017; European Parliament, 2017; Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2015; Van Acker, 2016; Messenger, 2017). By adopting of “closing-the-loop” production patterns, CE aims to increase the efficiency of resource use, with special focus on waste (Ghisellini et al., 2016). It is a model aiming at decoupling growth from resource (material, energy) constraints, maintaining material and resources in the economy as long as possible, thus minimizing waste and resource use. The concept dates back to late 1970s and has been shaped by a number of schools of thought such as “regenerative design”, “industrial ecology” and “cradle to cradle”. CE is a generic term for economic, technological and policy guidelines striving to (better) close material loops, to dematerialize the economy or make the economy less resource dependent. CE goes beyond the conventional “reduce, reuse and recycle” approach; it also includes the repurposing and rethinking of materials, and the repair, refurbish and maintenance of products to be cycled back into supply chains. This can be obtained by:    

Adapted product design for easier disassembly and easier recycling, Standardization and modularization of components, Elimination of the use of toxic substances, Creating markets for collecting and reselling components.

New consumption patterns (sharing of goods, intelligent architecture) and new business models (leasing, shift from product ownership to product usage) must be developed. An important barrier to CE is the lack of an adequate collection system. This means that also the disposal sector will have to rethink itself towards cleaner collection of products, going beyond the discussion of mono-material collection as waste streams are usually composed of different materials (Andersen, 2007).

2.5 Service sectors: Sustainable tourism as an example Tourism is a fast and sustainable growing economic sector worldwide. In 2016 over 1.1 billion international arrivals were noticed. The 2016 figure is the result of an uninterrupted solid growth since more than 59 years. For 2017 a growth rate of 3-4% is expected.

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Although most of the tourism activity still happens in Europe and in North-America, the growth is most pronounced in selected developing countries. In spite of its vulnerability for natural disasters, public health concerns, and political instability, tourism is seen by these countries as an important source of foreign money and their support to the sector is considered as an instrument for poverty alleviation. Tourism development faces environmental, social, economic, and ethical problems. Environmentally the sector faces the negative effects of air pollution in skiing areas, bathing water pollution at beaches, refuse waste, high inputs of energy and materials in the increasing sea-cruises section, and suffers from the amounts of (air and car) traffic it generates (Cabello-Eras et al., 2016). At the social side, apart from the limitations on development and the risk of increasing inequalities tourism development might introduce, seasonal less attractive working conditions, tourism often attracts begging, criminality, prostitution and drugs trade. From an economic point of view over-dependence on the sector (over 70% of the economy of the Maldives depends on tourism) and money leakage are well-studied problems. The ethical aspects of e.g. pro-poor tourism and neo-colonialism characteristics of tourism to developing countries are of growing concern (Spenceley, 2008; Tang, 2015). On the other hand, tourism offers important opportunities alleviating the above mentioned problems. A significant part of tourism activities occurs in sunny places during the perisummer season, which provides huge opportunities using photovoltaic and passive solar energy. In national and geo-parks, both terrestrial and marine, tourism allows raising awareness on the (ecosystem) value of biodiversity. Advanced combined social and technical methods exist dealing with the waste and pollution hot-spots problem. Establishing pedestrian zones in intensively used tourist areas contributes to solving issues of crowding (Becken and Hay, 2007). To handle the problem, tourism has a series of instruments at its disposal ranging from preventive assessment methods, over company (hotels) and sub-sector (golf courses) specific environmental management systems, planning, policy, life cycle analysis of its products, economic instruments as taxes and levies, to education and information initiatives such as eco-labels and ethical codes (Xu and Fox, 2014). For sustainable tourism, it is important embarking for these solutions while conserving and protecting the natural and cultural resources which constitute its capital. For this transition, the sector should, among others, make use of CP approaches bringing down its carbon footprint, and using its inputs more efficiently. As much as any other sector, tourism will benefit of making sustainability part from the sectorial culture (Mowforth and Munt,2003). Tourism is discussed here as an example of a service sector which might benefit from the experience of CP methods. For many other examples, including the health care sector, taxi companies, railway companies, cultural organizations, education, or administration the same applies. There is no valid reason why non-production sectors in general should not take advantage of applying integrated sustainability approaches of which CP is a part, to bring down their negative environmental, social and economic imprints in society. 2.6 Green, blue, healthy and smart cities The widening area of application of CP is not limited to the increasing number of sectors which might benefit from applying the concept. Also, larger structures and organizations will benefit. Cities offer an example. Cities host more than half of the world population, receive every week 1.4 billion commuters, and generate over 85% of the world GDP. Most urban agglomerations are localized at the borders of the continents, providing them with an important part of their

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT economy which is water (trade) bound, and consequently with a significant blue water aspect. The idea of eco-cities dovetails in the environmental problems post-modern cities face: Increasing urbanization and modernization, cleaning-up the industrial heritage of the past century and declining attraction and quality of life. Cities emit major amounts of carbon, are hot spots of water pollution, areas where land is scarce and land use critical, and intense waste producers. This affects not only the quality of the environment, but also human health. This applies in particular to “civilization diseases” as diabetes: 2 people out of three suffering from diabetes live in cities; its incidence and risk of type 2 diabetes is affected by particulate pollution in the air; multiple and complex links exist between “urban diabetes” and climate changes (IDF, 2015). Cities increasingly emerge as key places interlinking climate change, environmental quality and health. Green cities are a major reply to these problems: They have low air pollution levels which do not threaten human health or the urban physical environment, they establish a water use and quality policy, strive towards zero waste emissions, are carbon neutral, and offer a sufficient amount of accessible green spaces for each inhabitant (Lucarelli and Roe, 2012). Cities bordering the sea or localized along main rivers, will pay special attention to their sea-bound economy. Ports and port areas, facing specific environmental (space and pollution) problems will require advanced environmental management systems, supported by the cooperation of all involved stakeholders. They deal with the extra (heavy) traffic the port activities generate, moving towards sustainable, long term solutions. Policies combine CP and smart cities in a variety of ways. In Europe the progress of smart cities depends on the advancement of the green economy and consequently on the further development of energy efficiency and renewable energy resources (Ferreira, 2015). In Southeast Asia Vietnam considers realizing smart cities as the follow-up of the Rio+20 Conference (UN, 20112). Political realities often strive towards combining these green-blue and health aspects of nowadays cities with the idea of cities as knowledge centers (De Jong et al., 2013). Combining environmental quality, urban health and knowledge, smart cities develop improved IT-managed traffic systems, promote low emission (new, electric) vehicles, and limit the access for old, polluting cars. They use advanced IT-techniques optimizing their public services and cultural offer. The more complex the system is, the more holistic the cure proves to be. The management of green cities necessitates an integrated vision on the future of the city. In the end green cities aim at creating beautiful and livable cities for the inhabitants and the visitors.

3. MORE ADAPTED METHODS Although during recent years major progress has been realized in integrating CP in the widening landscape of areas where the concept is applied, intellectual investments in fundamental, applied and practical tools remain required. Moreover the broader application field generates new needs. A few examples will illustrate this. 3.1 Indicators One of the early instruments measuring SD, the effectiveness of its (policy) instruments and the trends in its evolution, are indicators. Among their originally defined characteristics is that indicators should use existing data (Bell & Morse, 1999). Experience with indicators convincingly showed that the relevant data are limited and dispersed. Moreover, gap

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT analysis showed data gaps and also the quality of the available data raised concern. These remarks require a reply which basically comes to generating more indicator-relevant data. Next to this, the issue of specificity has been raised. Measuring eco-efficiency aims at obtaining an idea of the social, economic and environmental efficiency of an organization or a sector. It is about attaining a higher value with fewer inputs of materials and energy, and more output while avoiding pollution and waste. There is currently no widely accepted, single indicator, nor index integrating these three aspects of sustainability, enabling the monitoring of an organization or a larger unit. There is a need for establishing these specific measures targeted to assign the effectiveness and efficiency of cleaner production (Henriques and Catarino, 2015; Cabello-Eras et al., 2014). Finally, although developing sustainability indicators traditionally is the subject of complex manuals and guidelines, an imminent need remains to standardize the procedures more, in such a way that international, intra- and inter-sectoral comparisons provide more reliable results. 3.2 Assessment methods Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) originated during the 1970s as a systematic process analyzing and assessing the impacts of new projects on the environment. The aim was preventing, avoiding and/or mitigating the negative effects on the environment (Devuyst, 1995). This was followed by realizing that plans, policies, and programs might be as impacting on the environment as individual projects. These impacts were addressed by strategic environmental assessment (SEA) (Dalal-Clayton and Sadler, 2005). The widening of this impact assessment scope necessitated an extension of the methodological arsenal: the science and technology driven approaches prevailing in EIA, were complemented by methods dovetailing in planning and socio-economic sciences. Further widening of the assessment methods targeted specific areas of impact prediction and evaluation. Health impact assessment is an example. Its characteristic hazardsexposure-dose dependent effects logic, which only partially coincides with forecasting environmental impacts, necessitated a specific framework, which is commonly referred to as health impact assessment (HIA). Also for policy targeted impact assessments and those focusing on social impacts, proper schemes have been developed (Janssens and Hens, 1995). This range of assessment methods appealed for synthesis. This was partially realized with the introduction of sustainability impact assessment (SIA). Although no generally accepted definition exists, SIA can be defined as “a formal process of identifying, predicting and evaluating the potential impacts of a wide range of relevant initiatives and their alternatives on the SD of society”. SIA has similar targets as EIA and SEA: improving decision making and bringing environment/SD on board in decision making, but the method differs in scope from its predecessors. While EIA is targeted to environmental impacts of projects, SIA deals with SD at all levels of decision making (Hugé and Hens, 2010). Particular aspects are provided by risk assessment. In a SD context, financial exposure and its associated risk will most likely be assessed on acceptability. Environmental and human health risks might be quantified and assessed too. The results are based on the level of hazard the pollutants pose. The information can be used in two ways. First, it allows setting an environmentally “safe” level. Second, it may be used in conjunction with an exposure assessment to prepare a probabilistic risk assessment (Johnston et al., 1999). In contrast to EIA and its related assessments, environmental risks have limited prevention capacity: They are merely used stating that the pollution of water or another environmental

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT medium has exceeded what is considered acceptable. Social (e.g. reputational) risks assessment is possible, but rare. Nevertheless the social risks are considered essential in the process of SD transitions (Almeida et al. 2015). This heterogeneity of risk approaches results in almost absent combinations, providing a basis for sustainability risk assessment. While a holistic risk management (e.g. on eco-pharmaceutical risks, combining risks of products with life cycle analysis, evaluation and re-assessment of the environmental, social and financial aspects) is most necessary in a context of the widening application area of CP, its functional application looks remote today. The impact assessment family of methods, summarized above, is most relevant for cleaner production. They allow identifying the contribution of CP to preventing or mitigating foreseeable impacts and point to gaps in current knowledge. This latter also demonstrates the need for new, specific, additional assessment methods in a range of domains targeted to realizing aims where CP is able removing or alleviating current bottlenecks.

3.3 Management During recent years major progress was realized both in developing fundamental and applied aspects of (environmental, sustainability targeted) management systems (Heesterman and Heesterman, 2013; Halkias and Thurman, 2012). Early and simple approaches targeting general aspects on water, air, soil, energy, waste, and mobility evolved to systems addressing both the direct and the indirect impacts of the equation. EMSs for hospitals e.g. not only deal with general considerations on energy use, CO2emissions, water use, waste reduction, and pollution by likely hazardous chemicals. Over the years they became targeted towards specific issues as the occurrence of Legionella pneumophila and/or Pseudomonas aeruginosa in tap water and other water distribution facilities, eliminating mercury, reducing anesthetics contributing to GHG-emissions, environmentally sound antibiotics, PVC-free “safe” blood bags, other plastics and polymers used in health care, and medicines and other chemicals with endocrine disrupting properties (Schroeder et al., 2013; WHO-Europe, 2016). Moreover significant progress was realized in the collection and treatment of specific data, green procurement for hospitals, and linking subsections as waste management and food. On the other hand, significant unmet needs exist. Examples entail: - The mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of green procurement. - Product sustainability of supply chains and detailed systems managing the increasing complexity. - New organizational capacities. - The integration of the currently insufficient environmental and socio-economic data. - Stakeholder involvement in developing new management-supporting technologies with a toxicity reducing character. - The wider contribution of these approaches to well-being and quality of life. Different management approaches exist to implement rational energy use in a CP context (RECP). Management standards as ISO 14001 (Environmental Management System/EMS standardized by the International Standards Organization), ISO 26000 (Corporate Social Responsibility Management System) and ISO 50001 (Energy Management System). These

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT systems which facilitate the introduction and implementation of RECP, have been applied in the industrial sector as well as in the service one (Gopalakrishnan et al., 2014).

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Box 1: Accounting green for cleaner production Green accounting is a system which allows compiling all indicators of environmental change expressed in physical units or indices based on physical units. The indicators should reflect various aspects, elements, events and environmental factors which characterize the source (e.g. forest protection, groundwater or minerals in the soil), but also to the sinks (e.g. air pollution, waste, consumer guidance). Ecological (or green) accounting reflects environmental changes as far as possible in the economic sphere of national and business accounts (van Bischhoffshausen, 2016). Cleaner production contributes to sustainable development in industry through an efficient management of natural resources, the use of renewable energy, more efficiency of environmental processes and other strategies, while producing quality products. In this context, green accounting is important as a set of methods measuring the eco-efficiency of products in economic terms (Chakraborty, 2017). Quantifying the costs, expenses and environmental investments of the production provides relevant and significant information on "cleaner production". Green accounting also provides information on and from environmental management systems which objectivizes and facilitates decision making on minimizing costs and investing in technology and materials development. Green accounting quantifies the ecoefficiency of the production processes, their environmental impacts and these of the products and their acceptance on the market (Oliveira et al., 2016). “Cost” is fundamental in green accounting for cleaner production. It allows to improve the environmental performance while reducing the cost and support the identification, evaluation and an adequate location of the environmental costs (Shaikh, 2016). Green or environmental costs cover the life cycle and entail purchasing, disposal and treatment (e.g. of resources, monitoring, training, and insurance). Implementing an environmental accounting system is most relevant as it benefits both society and entrepreneurs. It contributes to the proper management of natural resources and the environment, which is the fundamental goal of green accounting. Contributing to preserving the environment necessitates a "Cleaner Production" which conserves raw materials, water and energy; minimizes toxic and dangerous raw materials; and decreases the toxicity of emissions and waste at the source during the production process. Green Accounting provides quantitative data on environmental performance and money and is as such essential for "cleaner production” (Chamorro, 2016). Green accounting was originally established as a macroeconomic measure referring to national economies. This why environmental accounting uses both physical and monetary units measuring the consumption of natural resources and energy, both renewable and non-renewable (Ojito et al., 2017). In a company these financial data are one of the bases moving to cleaner production. This entails integrating social and environmental information of the company, which often was not quantified or disclosed before. In this way green accountancy contributes to a cultural shift in the organization's business approach towards cleaner production.

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Additionally, specific methodologies for water management (Koufos and Retsina 2001; Feeley et al., 2008; Hutchison and Ellison, 1992) and for waste management (Tchobanoglous, 1993; Morrissey and Browne, 2004) further contribute to the implementation of RECP. To cope with the different management systems, which demand several duplicated tasks when implemented in parallel (Zeng et al., 2007), the concept of integrated management, for which there are several definitions, emerged (Gianni and Gotzamani, 2015). Such integration aims at taking advantage of the synergies and elements common to the different management approaches towards a more holistic management system (Rößler and Schlieter, 2015), which in principle allows for a complete implementation of RECP. However, regardless of the need for guidelines and models to harmonize and streamline integrated management systems, a recognized international standard is still missing (de Oliveira, 2013; Gianni and Gotzamani, 2015). 3.4 Monitoring, modelling and reporting Under the heading “measuring provides knowledge” both impact assessment studies and EMS rely on measured data. Therefore, collecting data, including the monitoring of foreseen (and overlooked) impacts are essential to enhance the reliability of these methods. Models are an important instrument in this respect. They enhance the predictive capacity of the assessment approaches. Their validation is driven by data of high technical quality (Moffat et al., 2001), which depends to a large extent on the quality, the availability and the accessibility of databases and reporting. The experience with life cycle analysis (which also is strongly driven by the use of processspecific data) illustrates the fragmentary and partial character of the available data, which are often difficult to control on their scientific validity. Data relevant for SD suffer even more from fragmentation, partiality, and lack of quality assurance. More and easier accessible reliable data reported according to strict quality guidelines are mandatory at this moment and for the years to come.

4. Changing targets The widening of the scope of problems and issues covered by cleaner CP also results in broadening the aims to be realized. The focus is on three aspects: (-) While originally the approach was mainly applied contributing to SD in the production sector, widening the application scope of CP by involving the service and administrative sectors, next to the decision makers, points to its relevance for a broader societal realization of sustainable development. Monitoring and assessment instruments should be adapted to this new and evolving context. (-) This widening towards sustainable development has far going consequences. The main one is the dilution of the environmental targets. More and more environmental quality and responsible use of resources is not anymore a target by itself. As an element of SD it becomes embedded in a wider strategy addressing also economics and social aspects. At the policy level quality of life (QoL) targets, of which environment is a part, move to the forefront. (-) The widening of the targets also manifests itself at a strategy level. Originally, business and industry had to cope with the effects of major calamities. Their reply was first negating the issue by moving the attention towards another aspect as jobs. After the acceptance of their undercooled attention for environmental issues, they installed environmental (including energy and resources) management. This illustrates the defensive the strategy during the first post Second World War decades. Embracing environmental management fundamentally changed this strategy: It allowed industry

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT acting in a pro-active way on environmental challenges. The approach allowed going beyond legal compliance and performing better on energy consumption and pollution prevention than prescribed by the permits. This provided the sector a much more reliable perception in the environmental and sustainability debate. This fundamental move might provide a guideline for other sectors. Agriculture, forestry and fisheries e.g. should leave their environmental impacting perception behind and opt for sustainable food production methods.

5. Discussion This overview of 25 years of evolving ideas on CP not only illustrates the logical steps taken during the widening of the concept. More fundamentally it illustrates that the environmental and SD challenges cannot be solved by technology (even not in combination with socio-economic data) alone. A wider and more integrated approach, combining technological advances with human ecology, policies, psychology and ethical aspects are mandatory to ensure further steps forwards to SD. Dealing with the historical trends in the evolution of the CP concept allows also identifying major trends for the future: -

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CP will increasingly become an important part of the vision, strategy, policy, and management not only in production sectors (industry, agriculture, forestry, aquaculture), but also in service sectors as tourism, health care and administration. The growing interest of the services sector will increase the attention for cleaner consumption. In hospitals, the consumption of products is responsible for over 40% of the CO2-emissions. Green procurement, combined with in depth environmental management allows bringing down the absolute emission figures. To cope efficiently with this widening perspective proper monitoring and identification are essential. This should go beyond the currently existing laboratory and administrative quality control procedures. It should include among others proper environmentally accountancy allowing to establish more accurate and more targeted (environmental, social, economic, combined) footprints, to mention only this most needed methodological progress. CP will be applied realizing targets of SD coinciding e.g. with the aims of public health and clean environments as they are interpreted in a green and smart city context (neutral carbon balance, zero waste, accessible green and blue spaces), and development in general. To this end major changes and innovation will be necessary. Complementary to the strategic aspects, issues that will attract more attention during the years to come include:  Integrated CO2-reduction approaches to stabilize climate change and the associated effects. This presumes combining avoidance, reuse, stocks, minimization, adaptation, and mitigation of the effects. This will necessitate improved and optimized production processes, life cycle approaches (combining the origin of the materials with production aspects, maintenance and waste, taking into account the transport aspects) better product design, monitoring of the outputs and impacts, management, sustainability-targeted quality control, stakeholder involvement, awareness raising and training (Huisingh et al., 2014).  Water use and quality: freshwater of good quality is an increasingly rare and valuable resource. More efforts are needed to use less water (savings improving the efficiency of water use), preventing both chemical and biological water pollution, and increasing the effectiveness of waste water treatment.

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Seasonal, locally produced, environmentally sound (organic, ecological, with a limited energy and chemicals input) food will become increasingly important and take advantage of CP methods and strategies. Realizing the ambitious targets on this food issue will necessitate an integrated approach including green procurement, quality control (labels), good practices, and behavioral and cultural changes and transitions. More research is needed unraveling the links between environmentally sound food and health.  The success of the CSR-CP nexus will strongly be influenced by the implementation in SMEs, not at least in developing countries. Environmental improvements in SMEs of local industrial districts (“industrial clusters”) can bez reached using three governance approaches: legal enforcement, supply chain pressure, and voluntary engagement in CSR (Puppim de Oliveira and Jabbour, 2015). Experience with environmental management instruments (e.g. environmental and sustainability impact assessment) showed that these instruments are generating most effect if they are legally compulsive and properly enforced. Realizing these widened CP targets will necessitate more and better-focused research (e.g. on footprints and accountancy methods, environmental and related impact assessments and new developments in renewable energy and energy efficiency), education, knowledge, skills, and consultancy.

The widening scope of cleaner technology is promising but also has its limitations. Additional initiatives e.g. to advance CSR are often situated in the realm of the social targets and instruments. The concept of “shared value” might be provided. In the long term the financial performance of an organization depends on the quality of the environment in which it operates (Porter and Kramer, 2006). According to this vision, acting in a sustainable way goes beyond responsibility; it offers opportunities serving the core objectives of the organization, promoting innovation and establishing a competitive advantage. Another weakness of the new developments concerns the hesitating and controversial implementation of CSR in developing counties. In view of the varying first research results on this emerging topic, more research is strongly indicated. (Pena-Vinces and Delgado-Marquez, 2013). Using CSR in SMEs is much slower than in auction market listed, bigger companies. This should be alleviated as CP targets appeal to SMEs: Worldwide they produce around 70% of the total world pollution and 60% of the total carbon emissions (Aragon-Correa et al., 2008). SMEs should go beyond their legal obligations to address this massive problem of pollution and resource use. In the past, CP significantly contributed to the implementation of SD in business and industry. It proved to be likely one of the most effective concepts and instruments awakening this sector for the changes in a society moving towards a cleaner environment. Therefore the widening scope, targets and methods will, without a doubt, contribute to a society moving towards long-term, respectful and responsible transitions. This is most likely one of the major strengths of the widening of CP.

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