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The Quest for Zero Emissions

Following the quest for zero defects and zero inventory, zero emissions will become a standard objective for industry over the next decade. Quality, once considered a cost, has now become a competitive tool. Today, total quality is considered a precondition for market entry. Similarly, in twenty years, zero emissions will have become an industry standard. At UNU in Tokyo, however, the quest for zero emissions has already begun in earnest as part of UNU's Zero Emissions Research Initiative which is supported by IETC.

Worldwide, companies have embarked on programmes to reduce waste as a way of maintaining market position, gaining a competitive edge and burnishing their image. First came the necessary drive toward energy efficiency, but widely publicized pollution problems have motivated companies to go further. With increasing environmental regulations and environmental taxes, many industries have realized the advantages of reducing the costs of waste at the source instead of at the end of the pipe. While this is laudable, bolder steps are now needed to maintain competitiveness. Industry must be willing to put its present selection of raw materials under scrutiny, rethink the manufacturing and distribution process, and engage in a search for zero-emissions manufacturing.

As part of United Nations University's Zero Emissions Research Initiative, a five-year research programme on "materials separation technologies" is now exploring technologies which facilitate the separation of materials without the use of solvents or catalysts so that all base materials are pure and fit for (re)use. In cooperation with ZERI, researchers at the Wood Chemistry Institute of the Latvian Academy of Sciences have already mastered a steam explosion technology for batch processing which may provide the technological breakthrough needed to make clean and efficient ink and fibre separation possible. Work is also underway with vacuum evaporation systems.

ZERI is pursuing research on similar clusters and similar breakthroughs in several other industrial sectors. One such programme is "Integrated Biosystems for full utilization of agro- industrial wastes," in which pilot research plants have begun working with beer brewery wastes. Other agro-industrial waste streams are being considered for integration, such as the water hyacinth, sisal, seaweed and sugar industries.

Noting the urgent need to eliminate products and materials which are critical to our quality of life today, but which are not sustainable, another ZERI programme getting underway in 1996 is a five-year programme on "molecular design and engineering." Researchers will seek to redesign basic inputs into economy, for example the development of completely new technologies for the color pigments used in the textile and car industries, two of the most polluting applications. With this in mind, the first area for which a research agenda is being developed is "colors without color pigments."

At ZERI, the goal is to pursue approaches that can be applied to any industry using a five-step methodology: First, researchers must look for a total throughput, verify whether there are possible uses for products that are completely consumed in the process of manufacturing, leaving no waste. If this cannot be achieved, the second step is to undertake an "output-input" analysis. Output tables offer detailed inventories of everything that leaves a factory, both products and wastes. Once a table is established discussion groups can identify creative and simple ways to use so-called waste outputs. The third step, then, is to identify clusters of industries which are complementary. Fourth, researchers work to identify breakthroughs needed to integrate production and waste use. The final step in the ZERI process is policy- making design, in other words, rethinking industrial policy-making.

The goal of ZERI is to bring together the best researchers from different disciplines and the most important industrial and communal policy-makers and leaders from industry in an effort to facilitate the shift to emissions-free industry. Started in 1994, ZERI's objective is to have the first tangible results within five years. However, if successful pilot research programmes qualify as "tangible results," then ZERI is already three years ahead of schedule.

For further information, please contact: UNU Public Affairs Section,

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