Chapter 24 - glossary

 

blacklisted
substances not allowed in products

cleaner production strategy
to reduce environmental impacts through changes in process design

Design for Disassembly
designing a product to reduce the impacts from the waste part of its life

Design for the Environment (DfE)
also called eco-design, designing a product to minimize the environmental impacts from its entire life-cycle and/or make it easier to recycle

eco-design
the same as Design for the Environment

eco-label
labels that let the customer know that the product is a good environmental choice, as evaluated according to one or several given criteria

Eco-Management and Audit Scheme, EMAS
environmental management standard developed by the EU Commission, now an EU regulation; EMAS differs from ISO 14001 in that public disclosure in the form of environmental reporting is compulsary

Environmental Impact Assessment, EIA
tool used in infrastructure planning and design to assess the environmental impacts of a proposal, for instance the location of an airport, to identify options to reduce such impacts

environmental management certification
certification by specific authorizing agencies that a company or organization has an EMS which meets the EMAS regulation or the ISO 14001 management standard

environmental management system, EMS
the way in which an organization, often a company, organizes its environmental work and the relations between management, the day-to-day operations and its environmental problems; the EMS requires that work is systematic, subject to improvement, clearly documented, specific tasks and responsibilities are placed on particular occupations and positions in the company – not on particular people – and that management periodically reviews its environmental work to identify weaknesses, strengths, and opportunities for improvement

environmental monitoring
measurement of an environmental parameter either as a geographical distribution or, especially for point sources, as a time series to judge environmental quality

green label
the same as eco-label

greylisted
substances that the designer can use, but only if there is no other alternative

industrial ecology
(as used in this chapter) the same as industrial symbiosis

industrial symbiosis
when several industrial firms located in close proximity to one another co-operate in such a way that one company's waste (excess heat or steam, chemical waste, inert solids, etc.) serves as input into another company's production process; also called industrial ecology

ISO 14001 standard
environmental management standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization, ISO

ISO 14042
ISO standard for LCA in which the final aggregation of impact data into one index is not required, and thus the LCA is complete after the classification and characterization steps

life-cycle assessment, LCA
assessment in which the entire environmental impact of a product, from the extraction of raw materials to its wasting, is estimated; to make an LCA is often a complex and time-consuming work

life-cycle inventory, LCI
the initial stages of an LCA including the determination of the functional unit, the system boundies, in which the life-cycle is broken down in steps and sub-processes, and data on the resource use of each of these are collected

management tool
procedure to decide which solution is the best for addressing a specified environmental problem

no development option
option added to an Environmental Impact Assessment in addition to the proposed development projects or constructions, in case no alternative would be environmentally acceptable

performance indicator
a relationship describing environmental performance, for instance emissions per unit of production

pollution prevention
procedures to reduce pollution by changing production technology oor management of a process

waste audit
more correctly called "waste minimization opportunity assessment" is a process in which the wastes from a production process are surveyed, often as part of the total energy and material flows, and measures for reducing them are proposed