sign-on to 'Clean Production Principles'

[ttweed@wildrockies.org (Tony Tweedale)]

The budding international Clean Production movement asks you to sign-on to
the following simple but proven & effective principles.  They have already
caused great change in manufacturing, especially in Europe.

send your assent, name, organization & address to:  Joel_Tickner@uml.edu
---

Principles of Clean Production          October 21, 1999

Production processes and products designed little concern for their
environmental impacts frequently damage human health and that of our
communities, and wreak havoc upon earth's fragile ecosystems.  The
resulting environmental degradation is global and all people are affected.
But the burden of environmental degradation falls disproportionately on the
poor, politically repressed, and people of color.

To end and reverse these impacts requires a commitment to clean production.
Achieving clean production requires the continuous application of
precaution, prevention, democracy, and producer responsibility for impacts
caused by production processes and products.

Principles

…       Preventive approach.  Prevention means reducing the toxicity
(detoxification) and material intensity (dematerialization) of  products
and production processes.

Prevention in production processes is achieved through in-plant changes in
processes, materials, and operations management.  Implementing prevention
techniques requires using less or non-toxic materials, renewable rather
than non-renewable materials,    and reducing energy and water use.

Prevention in products is achieved - across their lifecycle -- through
changes in product design and end-of-life product management.  Products
designed using a preventive approach:

i) contain or use no persistent, bioaccumulative, carcinogenic, neurotoxic,
teratogenic, or developmentally toxic chemicals or genetically modified
organisms;
ii) are reused, recycled, or composted at the end of their lifecycle;
iii) are manufactured using the cleanest and safest materials and processes.

Preventive techniques do not shift risks between environmental media,
workers, or citizens.

…       Right-to-Know.  Citizens and workers have the right-to-know and
understand the hazards and environmental impacts of materials used in
manufacturing processes and contained in products and their packaging.

This requires producers to report the use of all materials (including their
hazards), energy, and water used in production to workers, citizens, and
governments and to include on products a label that lists materials used in
production, contained in the product, and used in its packaging (including
their potential hazards).

…       Right-to-Participate in Decisions Affecting Public, Occupational,
and Environmental Health.  Citizens and workers have a fundamental right to
participate in the decisions that affect their health, life, and
environment.  This includes a right to prior informed consent before
exposure to potentially dangerous activities or products.  Such
participation can be achieved through an open meeting process and the
preparation of Environmental and Human Health Impact Statements prior to
constructing production, recycling, and disposal facilities and producing
or importing new products.

…       Precautionary approach.  When an activity or material poses creates
the potential for serious or irreversible harm to the environment or human
health, producers must take measures to prevent that harm from occurring,
avoid the activity, or cease using the material.  In these cases precaution
entails developing and using safer alternatives before a causal link has
been established by absolutely clear scientific evidence.  To continue an
activity in the face of serious harm producers should be responsible for
demonstrating that no safer processes or materials are available to perform
the task.

…       The Responsibility of Producers -- Extended Producer
Responsibility.  Manufacturers should be responsible for the environmental
and health impacts caused by their products and production processes
throughout their lifecycles.  Extended producer responsibility involves
four forms of responsibility: physical responsibility, economic
responsibility, product liability, and informative liability.  Physical
responsibility means producers are held accountable for a product once a
consumer finishes using it.  The physical management of a product may
entail collecting, processing, composting, treating, or disposing of
products.  Economic responsibility means producers must pay for the
physical management of a product after a consumer finishes using the
product.  Product liability means producers take responsibility for
environmental damages caused by a product during production, use or
disposal. Informative liability means producers must provide information on
the materials used to produce and contained in a product and the
environmental and human health effects of these materials throughout the
product's life-cycle.

…       Citizen Responsibility to Sustainable Consumption.  Citizens,
especially affluent citizens, have a responsibility to consume in a way
that is sustainable.  This entails limiting consumption of short-lived,
non-essential products; reducing the use of products that consume large
amounts of resources or contain or use toxic substances in their
production; increasing the use of durable, repairable, and less-toxic
products; decreasing reliance on polluting forms of transportation;
increasing "sharing" of durable products; and reusing, composting, and
recycling products at the end of their useful life.