Environmentally Benign Manufacturing: Trends in Europe, Japan, and the USA

In this paper, findings of the Panel for International Assessment of Environmentally Benign Manufacturing Technologies, sponsored by the United States National Science Foundation, are discussed. The mission of this interdisciplinary panel was to assess the international state-of-the-art in Environmentally Benign Manufacturing (EBM), and to identify priorities and collaborative opportunities. Over 50 sites in Japan, Europe and the United States were visited over the course of the yearlong study. This paper focuses on some global trends that were observed.