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green industry > glossary
GlossaryAccounting systems: The economic performance of a nation or province generally given as the gross domestic product (GDP). Present accounting procedures are limited and do not include the value or state of natural and environmental resources upon which future economic activity is based. The resources are generally regarded as "free goods" and not assets of the nation or province which are needed for sustained economic development or activity.
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Acid deposition: The airborne transport and descent to earth of acids and acid-forming chemicals, particularly those released by power plants, industry, and vehicles.
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Advanced industrial societies: Nations such as Japan and those of Europe and North America whose economies are based on industrial manufacturing and the use of fossil fuels. While virtually all nations have developed an industrial base to some extent, the advanced nations dominate the world economy in both their use of resources and in the total value of their economic activity.
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Bio-gas: A combustible gas (composed primarily of methane) produced when sewage or manure is fermented in the absence of oxygen. The solid material that remains in the digester after fermentation can be used as an organic fertilizer.
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Bio-indicators: Fish and other freshwater organisms from polluted waterways, for example, whose death or unusual behaviour may indicate the presence of hazardous pollutants that have escaped other detection methods.
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Catalytic converter: A device connected to the exhaust system of automobiles to control emissions of air pollutants, particularly those that contribute to photo-chemical smog such as hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide.
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Chlorinated hydrocarbon: A class of synthetic chemicals first produced in the 1930s, including potent pesticides such as DDT and other compounds that do not break down in the environment and can be concentrated to poisonous levels in the fatty tissues of fish, birds, and mammals.
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Chlorofluorocarbons (CFSs): A class of synthetic chemicals, better known under the name of Freon, first manufactured in the 1930s and widely used as refrigerants, spray propellants, solvents, and blowing agents for plastic foam. Stable and inert at ground level, these chemicals drift to the stratosphere where the sun's rays break away the chlorine and fluorine atoms they contain, causing a series of reactions that result in the destruction of stratospheric ozone.
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Code of practice: A set of rules, criteria, values and/or beliefs by which an individual, business, agency, government department or organization chooses to live, work, and operate under.
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Cogeneration: A facility in which two or more forms of energy are generated simultaneously or interchangeably. Commonly, a cogeneration facility produces steam for an industrial or commercial process and uses some of the steam to turn a turbine that generates electricity. Another type of cogeneration arrangement combines several energy sources in a single facility to provide a mix of energy forms (heat, electricity, etc.) in varying proportions according to the needs of the energy users.
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Conservation (nature): Protection against irreversible destruction and other undesirable changes, including the management of human use of organisms or ecosystems to ensure such use is sustainable.
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Dematerialization: Shifting from selling products with intense use of resources to selling 'value-added' services.
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Development: A process of economic and social transformation that defies simple definition. Though often viewed as a strictly economic process involving growth and diversification of a country's economy, development is a qualitative concept that entails complex social, cultural, and environmental changes. There are many models of what 'development' should look like and many different standards of what constitutes 'success'.
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Dioxins: A group of approximately 75 chlorinated hydrocarbons formed as by-products of chemical reactions involving chlorine (Cl) and hydrocarbons. Dioxins appear as manufacturing impurities in some herbicides, wood preservatives and disinfectants, and are released into the environment during the incineration of chlorine-based plastics or as a result of the chlorine bleaching process in the pulp and paper mills. They are also released in industrial processes such as steel making. Dioxins are persistent chemicals, accumulating in soil and human fatty tissue. Health effects are varied and complex, ranging from skin problems, such as chloracne, to cancers, birth defects and serious immunology, neurological and behavioural problems.
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Disincentives: Mechanisms (e.g., regulations, fees, taxes, policies, or programs) which act as deterrents and discourage, or prevent, decisions, actions, or behaviours which are targeted and undesirable.
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Eco-efficiency: The ability of an economic entity to generate great economic value from fewer resources.
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Ecology: Originally defined by Ernst Haeckel in 1866, ecology is the study of the relationships that develop among living organisms and between these organisms and the environment.
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Economic growth: The change over a period of time in the value (monetary and non-monetary) of goods and services and the ability and capacity to produce goods and services. It is economic growth which generates the wealth necessary to provide social services, health care, and education. It is the basis for ongoing job creation. However, sustainable development requires that there be a change in the nature of economic growth, to ensure that goods and services are produced by environmentally sound and economically sustainable processes. This will require efficient use of resources, value-added processing, sustained yield management of renewable resources, and the consideration and accounting of all externalities and side-effects involved in the extraction, processing, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal of those goods.
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Economically sustainable: The characteristic of prolonged, careful, efficient, and prudent (wise and judicious) use of resources (natural, fiscal, human), products, facilities, and services. It is based on thorough knowledge and involves operating with little waste and accounting for all costs and benefits, including those which are not marketable and can result in savings.
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Economy: What human beings do. The activity of managing resources and producing, distributing, and consuming goods and services.
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Ecosystem: A community of plant and animal species that interact together along with their physical and chemical environment.
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Energy budget: An accounting of the flow of energy through a system. Originally applied by ecologists to ecosystems, the approach is also useful in industry to check the energy efficiency of industrial processes.
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Energy conservation: Using less energy to achieve the same amount of work or decreasing the amount of fuel used to produce the same energy output. By reducing demand and improving energy efficiency, energy resources can be conserved.
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Energy efficiency: The percentage of total energy input that does useful work and is not lost or converted to low temperature, usually useless, heat. With the growing concern for declining energy resources, rising energy costs and the impact of large-scale energy consumption on the environment, the term refers to, for example, the willingness of society to change its user habits so that less energy is wasted.
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Environment: A combination of the various physical and biological elements that affect the life of an organism. Although it is common to refer to �the� environment, there are in fact many environments eg, aquatic or terrestrial, microscopic to global, all capable of change in time and place, but all intimately linked and in combination constituting the whole earth/atmosphere system.
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Environmental impact: The net change (positive or negative) in human health and the condition of the environment that results from human actions, activities, or development.
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Environmental Impact Assessment: A process which predicts the magnitude and importance of effects of a proposed activity on the environment, and on human health, and establishes conditions under which the activity may be undertaken. The result of the process may prevent the activity from proceeding if the potential effects are unacceptable.
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Environmentally-sound: The maintenance of a healthy environment and the protection of life-sustaining ecological processes. It is based on thorough knowledge and requires or will result in products, manufacturing processes, developments, etc. which are in harmony with essential ecological processes and human health.
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Equitable: Dealing justly and fairly with all those concerned.
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Fossil fuels: Fuels such as coal, oil and gas made by decomposition of ancient animal and plant remains which give of carbon dioxide when burned.
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Fuel cells: Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that convert a fuel�s energy directly to electrical energy through a chemical reaction instead of combustion. Fuel cells operate much like continuous batteries when supplied with fuel to the anode (negative electrode). Fuel cells forego the traditional extraction of energy in the form of combustion heat, conversion of heat energy to mechanical energy (as with a turbine), and finally turning mechanical energy into electricity (e.g. using a dynamo). Instead, fuel cells chemically combine the molecules of a fuel and oxidizer without burning, dispensing with the inefficiencies and pollution of traditional combustion.
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Full-cost accounting: The process of accounting for and including all environmental, economic, and social costs (and benefits) of a particular action, activity, policy, or development in the decision-making and/or approval process and pricing.
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Greenhouse effect: The cause of global warming. Incoming solar radiation is transmitted by the atmosphere to the Earth�s surface, which it warms. The energy is retransmitted as thermal radiation, but some of it is absorbed by molecules of greenhouse gases instead of being retransmitted out to space, causing the temperature of the atmosphere to rise. The name comes from the ability of greenhouse glass to transmit incoming solar radiation but retain some of the outgoing thermal radiation to warm the interior of the greenhouse. The �natural� greenhouse effect is due to the greenhouse gases present for natural reasons, and is also observed for the neighbouring planets in the solar system. The �enhanced� greenhouse effect is the added effect caused by the greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere due to human activities, such as burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
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Greenhouse gases: Molecules in the Earth�s atmosphere such a carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and CFCs which warm the atmosphere because they absorb some of the thermal radiation emitted from the earth's surface.
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Hazardous waste: A class of waste materials that poses immediate or long-term risks to human health or the environment and requires special handling for detoxification or safe disposal. Both industrial and household wastes include hazardous materials.
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Heavy metals: Elements such as copper, lead, cadmium, mercury, and other toxic metals used in industrial processes and often released as both air and water pollutants. They may accumulate to hazardous concentrations in sediments and sludge.
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Hydrocarbons: Air pollutants that are important precursors of smog. These chemical compounds are generally released as unburned or incompletely burned residue when carbon-containing fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas are burned in car or truck engines.
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Incentive: Any benefit (economic, regulatory, policy, etc.) which influences or encourages a desired action or behaviour.
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Industrial revolution: A historical transition that began in England in the eighteenth century, when the use of coal both in steam engines and for iron smelting enormously increased industrial output. Industrial technologies and the use of fossil fuels quickly spread to other nations, generated unprecedented industrial growth, and changed fundamentally the human use of resources and impact on the local and global environment.
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Industrialization: A development path based on expanding a country's capacity to process raw materials and manufacture products for consumers, businesses, and export. This approach to development, first seen in northern Europe in the Industrial Revolution typically entails heavy financial investment in factories and power plants and a rapidly growing demand for energy, particularly fossil fuels.
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Innovation: The use of a new idea, material, or technology to change an activity, development, good, or service or the way goods and services are produced, distributed, or disposed of.
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Integrated waste management: A strategy that employs several waste management methods, usually in the following order of preference: source reduction, recycling and reuse, incineration, and disposal in landfills.
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Landfill: A site designated for disposal of solid or chemical wastes by burial. It may be essentially an open pit or a highly-engineered facility that includes special linings to prevent wastes from leaking into water supplies.
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Liability: An obligation to do or refrain from doing something. The responsibility for ones own actions and responsibility for the adverse effects they may have on third parties, including financial responsibilities.
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Management: The effective and efficient integration and coordination of resources (natural, financial, human) in order to achieve desired goals, objectives, and mandates. The style, tenets, criteria, and techniques used will define the management philosophy.
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Market incentives: Incentives which are directed at changing behaviour through the market economy. They can have a direct effect on the price or availability of a particular resource, good, or service.
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Mitigation: Techniques or requirements (e.g., conditions of development approval) aimed at reducing or neutralising identified negative environmental, economic, or social effects of a proposed activity, policy, or development.
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Montreal Ozone Agreement: An agreement signed by 24 nations in 1987 (and since then endorsed by more than 30 others), that set a timetable for the reduction of chlorofluocarbon and halon production levels by 50 per cent by the year 2000 to control damage to the ozone layer. The Montreal Ozone Agreement is considered a model of the global environmental diplomacy needed to address the more complex issue of the greenhouse effect.
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National conservation strategies: Plans that highlight country-level environmental priorities and opportunities for sustainable management of natural resources, following the example of the World Conservation Strategy published by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in 1980. Though governments may support preparation for the strategies, they are not bound to follow IUCN's recommendations.
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Negawatts: A term coined by energy analyst Amory Lovins to signify that a unit of energy saved is exactly equivalent to an additional unit of energy supplied. If it is cheaper for a utility to save energy than to generate an equivalent amount of additional energy, the utility has more incentive to invest in negawatts than in megawatts.
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Newly industrialized countries: A category including several Southeast Asian nations (South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Malaysia) that have achieved high rates of economic growth in recent years by attracting manufacturing and assembly plants for the automotive, electronics, and other industries. These industries have benefited from relatively educated workers, low wage levels, various sorts of government incentives, and generally lax environmental regulations.
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Non-renewable resource: A natural resource that cannot be replaced after it has been consumed. It applies particularly to fossil fuels, which can only be used once, but it also describes other mineral resources that are present in only fixed quantities in the earth�s crust, although metals can be reused through recycling. Central to the concept is human time frame. Oil and natural gas are being formed beneath the earth�s surface at present and new mineral ores are also being created. However, replacement may take millions of years, and society can consume them much more rapidly that they can be replaced. Thus in human terms they are effectively non-renewable.
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Organochlorides: A group of organic compounds that contain chlorine (Cl). They have a variety of forms and uses including aerosol propellants, plasticisers, transformer coolants (PCBs) and food packaging (PCVs), but their greatest use was as pesticides, in the form of DDT, Aldrine and Lindane. However, with time many pests have developed immunity to them and it has also become clear that the characteristics that made them good pesticides � persistence, mobility and high biological activity � also posed dangers for the environment. Organochlorides accumulate in the fatty tissue of animals, and through biomagnification in the food chain may reach toxic levels in predators. Because of side effects such as sterility, birth defects, cancer and damage to the nervous system, they have been banned or had their use severely restricted in most parts of the world.
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Organophosphoruus compounds: A group of pesticides that work by blocking the central nervous systems of the organisms exposed to them. Malathion and diazonon are the most commonly used organophosphates. They are highly effective against insects, but break down rapidly in the environment and do not bioaccumulate. For these reasons, they are preferred over organochloride pesticides. Although generally considered safer than the organochlorides, they are highly toxic to humans and other mammals and may be carcinogenic.
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Ozone: An unstable and chemically-reactive gas containing three oxygen atoms, formed at high altitudes by the action of sunlight on molecular oxygen. Present at low concentration in the stratosphere, ozone absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the sun and reduces the amount of this damaging radiation that reaches the Earth's surface. Ozone is also formed at ground level - by the interaction of sunlight with exhaust gases from automobiles and industry, and by the action of sunlight on nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons-where it is a primary component of smog that aggravates breathing problems and damages plants.
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Ozone hole: A popular name given to a phenomenon discovered in 1987, when scientists measured unexpectedly low ozone concentrations in the stratosphere above the South Pole during the Antarctic spring. It is now generally accepted that the loss of stratospheric ozone is caused by chemical reactions initiated by chlorofluorocarbons.
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Photovoltaic (PV) cells: Thin silicone wafers that convert any light, not only sunlight, directly into electricity.
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Pollution: An undesirable contaminate (gas, liquid, noise, solid) which has been released into, and is now a part of, the environment.
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Proper resource pricing: The pricing of natural resources at levels which reflect their combined economic and environmental values.
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Renewable resource: A resource that is replaced at the rate which is faster than, or at least as fast as, it can be used. The oxygen (O) in the air, the plants and animals in the environment, the water in the hydrological system and energy from the sun are all renewable.
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Right-to-know laws: Regulations that require the disclosure of information about hazardous materials used, stored, emitted, or disposed of in a community, when requested by local authorities or citizens.
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Smog: Originally a combination of smoke and fog, now used to describe other mixtures of air pollutants, especially ozone and other compounds formed when strong sunlight acts on a mixture of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds from motor vehicle exhaust.
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Solar thermal energy: Energy produced by using the sun's rays to heat a gas or liquid that then performs useful work, such as powering an electrical generator. Electricity from solar thermal power plants is now nearly competitive in cost with electricity from conventinal fossil-fuel power plants.
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Stakeholders: Individuals, groups, or businesses that are interested, involved, or affected by a particular action or activity.
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Stakeholders: Individuals, groups, or businesses that are interested, involved, or affected by a particular action or activity.
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Subsidy: A financial benefit or form of assistance given to producers (e.g., grants, loans, tax allowances)which enables them to sell or export goods at less than their costs of production, thus creating unfair competition.
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Sustainable development: Sustainable development has as many definitions as subscribers. In essence, it refers to economic development that meets the needs of all without leaving future generations with fewer natural resources than those we enjoy today. It is widely accepted that achieving sustainable development requires balance between three dimensions of complementary change:
- Economic (towards sustainable patterns of production and consumption)
- Ecological (towards maintenance and restoration of healthy ecosystems)
- Social (towards poverty eradication and sustainable livelihoods)
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Tidal/wave power: Power that can be generated in coastal locations from the twice-daily ebb and flow of the tides. As the tide rises, water is allowed to flow through gates in the dam to fill the basin behind it. At high tide the gates are closed and as the tide falls the water in the basin is retained behind the dam. Once a sufficient head of water is built up, the water behind the dam is released and the potential energy it possesses is converted into kinetic energy which drives generators to produce electricity.
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Turbine: Rotary engine that converts the energy of a moving stream of water, steam, or gas into mechanical energy. The basic element in a turbine is a wheel or rotor with paddles, propellers, blades, or buckets arranged on its circumference in such a fashion that the moving fluid exerts a tangential force that turns the wheel and imparts energy to it. This mechanical energy is then transferred through a drive shaft to operate a machine, compressor, electric generator, or propeller. Turbines are classified as hydraulic, or water, turbines, steam turbines, or gas turbines. Today turbine-powered generators produce most of the world's electrical energy. Windmills that generate electricity are known as wind turbines.
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Utility: A public or private company that supplies a basic service to the general public, such as electricity, gas, or water.
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Waste-to-energy incinerator: An incinerator that uses waste products as fuel, to provide energy for space or water heating. Various types or refuse are used, from simple paper products to plastic and scrap car tyres. In many cases they are used as fuel supplements, since on their own they have an energy content that may be only 30 to 50 per cent that of solid fuels.
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Wind energy: Energy from moving air which is converted to electricity, by using wind to turn electricity generators. Wind energy has a number of advantages over conventional forms of energy. It is pollution-free and renewable.
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Wind farm: A cluster of wind turbines (up to several hundred) for generating electrical energy, erected in areas where there is a nearly steady prevalent wind; such areas generally occur near mountain passes.
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World Commission on Environment and Development: Established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1983 to examine international and global environmental problems and to propose strategies for sustainable development. Chaired by Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, the independent commission held meetings and public hearing around the world and submitted a report on its inquiry to the General Assembly in 1987.
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World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD): The World Summit on Sustainable Development takes place from 26 August - 4 September 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Governments, UN agencies, and civil society organisations will come together to assess progress since the UN Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio in 1992 (hence the title 'Rio + 10' for the Johannesburg meeting). Sustainable development is defined in the report from the Rio meeting as being 'economic progress which meets all of our needs without leaving future generations with fewer resources than those we enjoy'.
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Zero-discharge technology: Technology that comprises industrial processes designed to prevent the release of any pollutant harmful to the environment (e.g., recovery of solvents, cleaning rinses, and other chemicals used in manufacturing by collecting them and removing dissolved and suspended materials so the liquids can be reused.
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