ABSTRACT
The various technological approaches (and environmental legislation) can work hand in hand with the basic idea to find the optimum solution based on the diagnosis by playing on the entire spectrum of available methods. The improvement of production processes with considerations on how to save the burden on the environment is widely known today under the name of cleaner production. In this context, it should be realized that concerns of the environment not only deals with the relations of a factory to its externals but also relates to its employees by considering the internal environment. In fact,
improving production by reducing the load on the surrounding environment takes on various forms that may be organized in a hierarchical manner. At the lowest level, small improvements of the efficiencies of the use of basic resources such as water and electricity could be mentioned. The next level can be exemplified by hard-core technological consideration of changing the production process and addressing even the design of the product. The highest level could be a basic innovative step, sometimes called industrial ecology where several production units are (re)organized or restructured for the benefit of the environment. Both the areas of cleaner production and industrial ecology have today their own dedicated journals and both serve the purpose of increasing the sustainability of necessary productions of our society (Almeida et al., 2015; Korhonen, 2004).
