Cleaner production and profitability: analysis of 134 industrial pollution prevention (P2) project reports

Pollution prevention (P2) can be taken as the father of modern approaches to the pro-active management of industrial eco-efficiency. Despite the radical changes and methodological developments following its introduction, over the past 30 years, P2 still remains a useful conceptual and procedural tool for improving the environmental performance of production systems. The essential characteristic of the P2 approach is the ‘reduction at source’ principle, derived from the idea that the generation of pollutants can be reduced or eliminated by increasing efficiency in the use of raw materials, energy, water and other resources. From this point of view, it is also a means of raising operational efficiency and profitability. The numerous success cases as well as the less satisfactory results documented in the scientific and technical literature provided the starting point for a detailed analysis of how and to what extent industrial P2 projects have been developed and realised, particularly in terms of profitability. To this end, the information in 134 P2 project reports taken from various bibliographic sources was collected and processed. The high frequency of P2 projectsʹ objectives that focused on cost efficiency demonstrates that the environmental management of production processes has changed from a compliance point of view into a strategic issue for company long-range competitiveness. On the other hand, the scarce use of systematic techniques and tools suggests that adoption of the P2 approach by companies is still in the early stage, mainly based on pilot projects, empirical and is not completely integrated into the management process.