Renere teknologi via produkt- og kortlægningsprojekter SummaryThe aim of this report is to present and evaluate 35 individual projects supported by the Action Plan for Cleaner Production 1993 to 1997. The projects comprise a selection of the projects carried out within the categories product and reviews. A specific aim is to gain experiences from the supported projects in order to improve the conditions for coming activities - especially to facilitate future projects within the product-oriented environmental strategy of the Ministry of Environment. Projects are divided into two categories: Company projects and review projects. Whereas company projects are typically departing in one or more companies, aiming at specific product development; and the review projects are typically carried out by consultants, aiming at more general problems. The evaluation is, on the one hand, based on internal documents such as the application and the recommendation supplemented by the reports, when these documents were accessible. On the other hand the appraisal is based on interviews with project managers from 33 of the projects. The supported projects The 35 projects received a total of 36 mill DKK (=£3.3 mill). The majority of the projects (25) received less than 1 mill DKK, while two projects received approx. 5 mill DKK. Slightly over 25% of the projects have according to the interviews had a course that did not correspond with the expectations, in most cases explained by lack of time. It is very likely that more projects would have been able to produce concrete results, if there had been a better agreement between the aims and actual burden of work. There is a clear connection between the category of the projects and whether the project is continued after the supported period: Company projects are much more likely to continue, than review projects. Seven projects (six company projects and one review project) claim that they would have been carried through regardless of the public funding. On the one hand this is a worrying discovery, since public environmental funds are limited. On the other hand, funding might in these cases have speeded important developments up - and thus improved a spreading of the results to other companies and/or sectors. From cleaner processes to cleaner products One of the main goals of the action plan was to move public funding from industrial processes to products. This intention is successfully reflected in the fact that more than half of the projects include some aspects of a lifecycle assessment. The other half of the projects depart in common knowledge about the environmental problems in general or within the specific industrial sector. Among these are five company projects, totally neglecting environmental problems rooted outside the applying company. About 25% of the interviewed project managers had a rather limited understanding of the concept ‘cleaner products’, typically referring to single issues like energy efficiency or absence of harmful substances. This indicates that in many projects there is an insufficient understanding of the concept ‘product-oriented environmental strategy’. This is on the one hand understandable since this strategy was formulated by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency during the action plan - on the other hand slightly worrying, since one could expect persons managing environmental projects to be familiar with the existing environmental strategies within their area. However, it is positive that as many as 75% seem to have an adequate understanding of this central concept. It is the general picture that projects within both categories fail to collaborate with other actors in the production chain - apart from the primary links - typically those supplying the industry with raw materials or semi-manufactured goods. Only few projects collaborate with actors in the other end of the product chain: consumers or retailers. Despite the emphasis on products in the action programme, it seems as if the companies have not enlarged the range of actors they normally involve in the product development activities. At the same time a surprisingly large part of the companies point to the fact that exactly an extended collaboration in the product chain is one of the positive results of their participation in the programme. The majority of the participating companies can be termed environmental forerunners. Many mention the environment as an important factor in their product development in general, and even more claim to make use of environmental claims, when marketing products. A majority of the companies say that they plan to market the products developed as a result of the projects as environmentally friendly products - or already do so. Although eco-labelling was not developed officially before the programme expired, surprisingly few companies are aware of the possibilities in such labels. Results More than half of the projects - 20 out of 35 - have a marketed product or a developed prototype as a result. Of these it is expected that more than half will have higher production costs than comparable products, while four are expected to have unchanged costs and only four lower costs. Eight of the 14 projects reaching only the prototype stage, have more or less concrete marketing plans; two are developing products - thus it must be expected that more than half of the projects will result in marketed cleaner products. Two companies say that they only reached at a stage of describing products. The environmental results of the company projects are of course positive: 13 out of 23 expect reduced air pollution and about half expect environmental results related to solid waste or waste water. These results seem to relate to technological efforts of more complex nature than the traditional - thus substitution of substances and changes in process technology seem to prevail. This could indicate that the easy results have been achieved, and the more difficult ones - and those likely to require more public funding - are in focus now. There seems to be a weak tendency that the environmental knowledge gained in the projects is rooted in the companies, rather than by the involved consultants. This is positive since product development takes place in the companies, but it can also be a barrier for the diffusion of knowledge, since companies can be expected to conceal their knowledge to the extent the environment becomes an important competitive issue. On the other hand, consultants must have an interested in a dissemination their environmental knowledge and knowledge about cleaner technology. The results of the company projects have not yet diffused to other companies or sectors. One obvious explanation is that the developments taking place in the projects are unique in the sense that they are not developments in the melting pot - this is to some extent contradicted by the minority of projects that would have been carried out anyway. However, the large majority of the projects have advanced a development of knowledge and/or products in an environmentally positive direction. It was not the intention of the evaluated projects to support within the lines of industrial sectors – but a couple of projects do unite all or most actors in a industrial sector. It is worth noticing, that this collaboration within traditionally competing companies is stressed as a very positive result by several of the involved actors. The results of the review projects are not as easy to evaluate as the results of the company projects, due to the fact that the results of these projects most often will appear in the long run. Excepted are, however, review projects that link directly to product developments. Recommendations As a result of the evaluation, the following recommendations are made in order to improve the future benefit from product-oriented projects:
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