Papers Delivered at International Conference on Cleaner Production
Beijing, China -- September 2001 -- Paper 25 of 30

Study and implementation of cleaner production 
in environmental impact assessment

Canzhu Gao - Email: gaocz@sdu.edu.cn 
School of Environmental Science and Engineering 
Shandong University, Jinan Shandong China 250100

Abstract The significance and methods of integrating cleaner production (CP) into environment impact assessment (EIA) were discussed. The detail of the assessment method of CP in EIA was put forward. We get a good result in demonstration EIA project.

Keywords CP EIA ICCP Integration

0. Introduction

Cleaner production has become a fundamental policy in various countries around the world to achieve their objective of sustainable development. Consensus on cleaner production (CP) has also been reached in China. Either governmental economic and environmental protection agencies or enterprises are aware that CP is the best choice for controlling industrial pollution. At The Second National Conference on Industrial Pollution Control co-sponsored by the State Economic and Trade Commission (SETC) and the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) in 1993 in Shanghai, CP was officially proposed in the governmental documents and it was encouraged to promote its implementation in China for sustainable development. After that time, much effort have been made on training, policy study, demonstration projects, and international cooperation on CP in various province and governmental agencies. Some remarkable progress has been made. Now, CP has been one of the important works of SEPA in the Tenth Five-year Plan. In order to promote CP, it is good way that integrate CP into existent environmental regulations. Application of CP in environment impact assessment (EIA) is one of the examples.

1. The relation of CP and EIA

1.1 The development shortage of EIA

1.1.1 The development of EIA

The use of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been growing in various countries and organization since the 1972s. During this time it has expanded both in geographical extent, environmental scope, and in sophistication of use. EIA is now regarded as a 'mature' discipline, with its own procedures, practitioners and professional societies. Its application to development projects has however remained a subject of debate, with all parties to the EIA process acutely aware of the need to further improve and streamline the process to make it a more effective planning tool.

After more than two decades of application, EIA is nevertheless still evolving. The environmental agenda that is the very basis of EIA considerations continues to expand, with relatively greater recent focus on incremental, global, and long-time issues to add to the local impacts that EIA was originally designed to examine. At the same time, other environmental management systems and tools are trying to do some of the things that EIA has not been able to achieve on its own, and the juxtaposition of various assessment and evaluation procedures within a larger environmental management framework now has to be better acknowledged.

Application to industrial projects has shared some of the uncertainties and controversies about EIA generally, but industrial projects also have some specific problems with highly public assessment processes, such as time delays and confidentiality. Within industry, there is very incomplete understanding of how to get the best results from an EIA, and in many cases the process often appears unsatisfactory from all parties' point of view.

1.1.2 The shortage of EIA

EIA has played important role in pollution prevention, at the same time, have some shortage, especially in developing countries. The one of the shortages is that the EIA rather emphasize on being up to the discharge standard than to reduce the quantity of waster. The another reason is that rather emphasize on end-of-pipe control than to pollution prevention from all of production process.

1.2 The development of CP

Since CP was put forward, The Chinese government has paid more attention to CP and done a lot of work. For example,

• A number of demonstration projects have been implemented.
• Multilateral or bilateral cooperation on CP with World Bank, Asia Development Bank, UNEP, and the governments of Canada, the United states, Norway and the Netherlands has been actively developed.
• Hundreds of training courses or workshops on CP have been held. As a result, the leaders of enterprises and economic circles have rapidly accepted CP concept.
• Thousands of enterprises have carried out the CP audit and get enormous benefit of economy and environment. According to CP audit reports from 100 enterprises, every enterprise reduced 20% waster and get economic benefit over ¥1 million 

But, the study of how to integrate the CP into existent environmental management system is little.

1.3  The relation between the CP and EIA

1.3.1 CP and EIA have a same objective --- pollution prevention

EIA emphasize that the discharge pollutants must be up to the standard of concentration and total quantity in order to reduce the impact to environment. Before the projects will be built, we can evaluate the all pollutants which from the projects impact on environment and can evaluate the capacity of the pollution control establishment big enough to treat the all of pollutants by EIA, so using EIA can prevent environmental pollution.

Before the projects will be built, we can evaluate the character of production process, the equipment and the generation quantity of pollutants by CP, and use the advanced experience of other company and CP options to reduce the quantity of pollutants. We can use CP to prevent from the build of projects which the discharge quantity of waster is big.

The objective of CP and EIA is prevention pollution.

1.3.2 There is a room for integrating CP into EIA

1. The data of engineering analysis in EIA can be used in CP audit. According to the technical guide of EIA, the influence of every link of production process, the transport of law materials and energy source, start or stop, repair and accidence on environment. If we find why the waster generate, where the waster generate, how to reduce the waster. We can put forward many CP options.
2. The CP options can be evaluate as environmental protection measure.

1.3.3 The significance of integrating CP into EIA

By way of integrating CP into EIA, it is very significance that we can promote the implementation CP, and the total discharge quantity control, coordinated development of economy and environment, sustainable development.

• We can make sure that new projects use the CP technology, in order to reduce the generation of waster, to reduce the cost, to improve the quality of products . The competition ability of company will be rise.
• The thought of CP make the work keystone of actuality monitoring and mode forecast in EIA turn practical engineering and pollution control countermeasure analysis. The quality and maneuverability of the EIA report will be improved. The level of the EIA people will rise. It can rise the dependability of environmental protection and reduce the risk of enterprises.

2. The method of CP evaluation in EIA

According to the "the information of SEPA about some opinion to promote CP " in April 1997 SEPA file [environmental control(1997)232], integrate the thought and methods of CP into technology of EIA, will emphasis on engineering analysis, pollution control countermeasure, environmental management and monitoring plan. The one of the objective of integrating the CP to EIA is answer question if the building project is up to the requirement or not, another one is CP options to save energy, reduce generation of pollutants, reduce the consumption in all production process from law materials to products.

2.1 The projects must be up to the requirement of CP

First, we confirm the principle of selecting CP targets and the CP targets, then establish the methods to evaluate the CP situation of projects. According to the feasibility report and production process of project, give the result if the project is up to the requirement of CP in plan of EIA.

2.2 The principia to select CP targets

1. think of the LCA of products
2. emphasis on the thought of pollution prevention
3. easy fix quantity
4. easy get the data

2.3 The targets of CP

According to principle of LCA, the targets of CP should cover the content of law materials, products, and production process, in which the use of law materials, and the generation of pollutants. So the targets of reflection CP level of project are as follow:

2.3.1 The target of law materials

1. toxicity -- we should not use the law materials which is harmful to environment.
2. ecology influence -- According to the principle of CP, we should increase the ecological efficiency
3. the character of regeneration -- According to the principle of CP, we should use the materials which is regenerative. For example, compare with coal, the plant is more easy regenerative.
4. the intensity of energy -- The intensity of energy means the consumption intensity of energy in the excavation and processing of law materials. According to the principle of CP, we should use the material which is lower intensity of energy.
5. reusability -- The reusability means the reused extent of the law materials. According to the principle of CP, we should use the material which can be reused.

2.3.2 The target of products

According to the principle of CP, we should think the influence of distribution, use and after reject of products on environment, and increase the use rate.

1. selling -- We should think the influence of transport from factory to seller then to user on environment. For example, toxic chemicals may leak in transport.
2. use -- We should think the influence of products in use process on environment. For example, the paint much more impact in the use process to environment than it do in production process.
3. increase life of products
4. after of reject of products

2.3.3 The target of resource

The energy consumption target per product can reflect usually the management and technological level of enterprise.

1. The energy consumption target per product -- The total quantity of energy, power, oil, coal, and vapor etc., usually produce one product. It can be expressed with standard coal.
2. Consumption of law material per product -- The total quantity of law materials and water usually was be used to produce one product.

2.3.4 The target of pollutant generation

The target of pollutant generation also can reflect the management and technological level of enterprise.

1. The target of wastewater generation

We first consider the total quantity of wastewater generation, because it can reflect the level of management and technology. We must also consider the concentration of the wastewater, so the target of wastewater generation made up of the quantity of wastewater generation and the main pollutants in water to produce one product.

• The total quantity of wastewater generation to produce one product.
• The quantity of the main pollutants generation to produce one product.

The main pollutants are the characteristic pollutants generated in the production process. It not only reflect the technological level but also reflect the pollution situation in production process.

2. The target of waste-gas generation

Similar to the target of wastewater generation, the target of waste-gas generation made up of the quantity of waste-gas generation and the main gas pollutants to produce one product.

• The quantity of waste-gas generation to produce one product.
• The quantity of main gas pollutants to produce one product.

The main gas pollutants are the characteristic pollutants generated in the production process. It not only reflects the technological level but also reflect the characteristic pollutants in production process.

3. The target of solid waste generation

The total quantity of solid waste generation to produce one product

2.4. The method of CP evaluation

2.4.1 evaluation rank

The target of pollutant generation and the target of resource are easy fix quantity in the four kind of targets, so we make the target of pollutant generation and the target of resource divide into five ranks.

For the convenience for calculation and statistics, the bound of target point is 0-100 (see table 2-1).

2.4.2 The method of CP evaluation

The CP evaluation method is used 100 point system. First, give out the point of easy fix quantity target, then multiply the respective weighted value, lastly get the total point by addition. We can determinant the CP extent of the project by total point. Reference the target of resource and the target of products, we can define the CP extent of project.

2.4.2.1 Selection of the weighted value

Since the point of CP target is 0-100. The total point to express CP extent of project is 0-100, so the total weighted must be 1. In order to make sure the veracity and applicability of evaluating method, we consult many experts, and determine that the weighted of target of the resource and the target of pollutant generation is equal, and is all 0.5.

2.4.2.2 The total CP evaluation of the project

According to the total CP point of the project, we can get the conclusion to express the CP extent of project (see the table 2-2).

3. Put forward the CP options

3.1 Thought

The second objective to integrate CP into EIA is to use the principle of CP to find the options in existent and building engineering project, to prevention pollution.

3.2 The grade of CP assessment

According to the result of the project CP analysis (Clean, Cleaner, Common), we can define the CP grade of the EIA. The relation between CP assessment grade in EIA and clean extent of project see table 3-1.

3.2.1 The require of first grade of CP assessment

1. To audit the similar process existent enterprise and put forward the CP options which may be used in the new project.
2. Audit the existent engineering in the enterprise for the expanding project.
3. The audit method is same method to audit existent enterprise.
4. The CP assessment is as a chapter of EIA.

3.2.2 The require of second grade of CP assessment

1. CP assessment Use the data from existent enterprises and design data and put forward options which may be used in the new project.
2. Audit the existent engineering in the enterprise for the expanding project.
3. The CP assessment is as a chapter of EIA.

3.2.3 The require of third grade of CP assessment

1. Put forward the CP options by analysis the data from other similar enterprise or design, and use the option in the new project.
2. Audit simply the existent engineering in the enterprise for the expanding project.
3. The CP assessment is as a chapter of EIA.

3.3 The audit method in EIA

The CP audit method to existent engineering is similar to the CP audit method to existent enterprises.

Difference from audit method of the existent enterprise, the audit to new or expanding projects carries out before the construction of the projects, but the objective of CP audit is same, in order to prevent the pollution. We can use follow method:

• We can audit the other enterprise which the technological process is similar to the one of new project.
• We can put forward CP options by analysis the data from design and other similar enterprises.
• Consult the engineers, experts put forward CP options as many as possible.

4. Practice application of the CP evaluating method in EIA

The method of CP assessment in EIA was be used in the EIA of Shandong Yucheng Baolingbao Biological development company. The project was the 20 thousand tons /a IMO 900 Iso-malt low-polysaccharid. The company had 10 thousand tons /a IMO 500 Iso-malt low-polysaccharid, so this is a expanding project.

First we quickly audit the existent engineering 10 thousand tons /a IMO 500 Iso-malt low-polysaccharid, and put forward 8 CP options. Because the technics is similar, the most of CP options which put forward from existent engineering can be used in new project.

After 8 options which put forward from existent engineering were implement, save 120 thousands tons water, callback IMO 500 product 45 tons, reduce wastewater 99 thousand tons, reduce COD load 80-90%, and save ¥ 600 thousand Yuan per year.

After 8 options which put forward from new engineering were implement, save 170 thousands tons water, callback IMO 900 product 300 tons, reduce wastewater 3 thousand tons, reduce COD load 80-90%, and save ¥ 5.5 million Yuan per year.

Implementing CP in EIA, we not only reduce the pollutants generation but also get enormous economic benefit. It is significance to promote pollution prevention and sustainable development.

Reference

1. Cleaner Production, A Training Resource Package, UNEP IE March 1996.

2. EIA for industry, Report of a UNEP TIE Workshop to Improve Industrial Planning through more effective use of EIA held in Paris, France 30 November-2 December, 1998.