Glossary Kopbaeva Laura f1101

Sustainable consumption implies that the consumption of current generations as well as future generations improves in quality. Such a concept of consumption requires the optimalization of consumption subject to maintaining services and quality of resources and the environment over time.

Sustainable production and consumption is the use of goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring a better qualify of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations.

Changing the deep-rooted unsustainable patterns of consumption that are evident in households and the private and public sectors constitutes a major part of SCP efforts. Innovative strategies are necessary, since consumption behaviour is firmly interlinked with price, convenience and status. The roles of “information gatekeepers”, such as retailers and the media, are particularly critical in terms of communicating with consumers and providing information about sustainable lifestyles.

Encouraging responsible industrial development. Conversion of productive agricultural land to industrial land use should be strictly prohibited. Tax holidays and subsidies should not be extended to new industries, and existing tax breaks should be revisited. Industrial Master Plans need to be made public, and easy online and offline access to them needs to be provided in English and Tamil. Risk and vulnerability assessment must be made mandatory. Comprehensive Disaster Management plans with off-site plan components need to be devised. Early warning systems and evacuation plans need to be in place. The government should mandate that a portion of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities of industries must involve environmental improvement for local communities.

A life-cycle assessment (LCA, also known as life-cycle analysis, ecobalance, and cradle-to-grave analysis)is a technique to assess environmental impacts associated with all the stages of a product's life from-cradle-to-grave (i.e., from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling). LCA’s can help avoid a narrow outlook on environmental concerns by: Compiling an inventory of relevant energy and material inputs and environmental releases; Evaluating the potential impacts associated with identified inputs and releases; Interpreting the results to help you make a more informed decision.

Metabolic system: Governs the chemical and physical changes that take place within the body that enable its continued growth and function. Metabolism involves the breakdown of complex organic constituents of the body in order to liberate energy for all the bodily processes and the building up of complex substances, which form the material of the tissues and organs.

Cradle-to-cradle design (sometimes abbreviated to C2C, or cradle 2 cradle, or in some circles referred to as regenerative) is a biomimetic approach to the design of systems. It models human industry on nature's processes in which materials are viewed as nutrients circulating in healthy, safe metabolisms. It suggests that industry must protect and enrich ecosystems and nature's biological metabolism while also maintaining safe, productive technical metabolism for the high-quality use and circulation of organic and synthetic materials. Put simply, it is a holistic economic, industrial and social framework that seeks to create systems that are not just efficient but essentially waste free.

Cleaner production is a preventive, company-specific environmental protection initiative. It is intendend to minimize waste and emissions and maximize product output. By analysing the flow of materials and energy in a company, one tries to identify options to minimize waste and emissions out of industrial processes through source reduction strategies. Improvements of organisation and technology help to reduce or suggest better choices in use of materials and energy, and to avoid waste, waste water generation, and gaseous emissions, and also waste heat and noise.

Eco-innovation is a term used to describe products and processes that contribute to sustainable development. Eco-innovation is the commercial application of knowledge to elicit direct or indirect ecological improvements. It is often used to describe a range of related ideas, from environmentally friendly technological advances to socially acceptable innovative paths towards sustainability.