Overview Clean Technology—The Idea and the Practice*

Clean Technology is an idea which goes beyond Cleaner Production: it concentrates not on a product but on the human benefit which it delivers. Clean Technology is a way of thinking, rather than a set of ‘hard technologies’. One productive approach is through dematerialisation, i.e. providing a service rather than selling a product. This approach leads to the developing idea of Industrial Ecology: the systematic use and re-use of materials. © 1997 SCI.