The Concept of Clean Technology

Clean Technology goes beyond Clean-UP (or "End of PiPe) Technologies to include Pollution prevention, waste minimisation, and cleaner production. However, the concept of Clean Technology goes deeper than changes in technology, to ways in which human needs can be satisfied sustainably. In other words, Clean Technology, concentrates on delivering a human benefit rather than making a product. Introducing cleaner technology may therefore involve new commercial relationships as well as new technological practices. In some economic sectors, this involves leasing or providing a service rather than selling a product. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an important tool in Clean Technology. LCA involves determining all the resources used and all the wastes and emissions produced in providing the human benefit. Use of LCA ensures that improved environmental performance in one part of the Life Cycle is not achieved merely at the expense of more environmental damage elsewhere. Going beyond LCA, the concepts of Life Cycle Design and "metabolised" use of materials are approaches to obtain maximum benefit from materials as they pass through the human economy. "Closed-loop" use can be a component of clean technology. Looking beyond simple re-use and recycling, a material may pass through a "cascade of uses". typically a series of applications with progressively lower performance specifications. Closed-loop use necessarily involves a change in commercial practice, because the material or product must be recovered after use.