Climate change is indisputable, and its impact on our planet's precious but finite resources is also undeniable. Indeed, this is one of the most pressing issues of our time: how can we pursue industrial development while keeping in mind the impact of productivity on the traditional environment?
We must find the right balance. Everyone feels the urgency. By 2050, the world is on a rapid trajectory to deplete all four of Earth's resources. A recent UN report also warns that CO2 emissions must be cut by nearly half by 2030 to protect the planet from the other threats of climate change. Note: that's just 10 years!
The conflict between humanity and nature has become increasingly pronounced, prompting people to reflect on their own behavior. A new concept and direction, gradually developing in the field of design, is leading to a transformation in production methods. Green design has become a hot topic, focusing on the development of advanced science and technology to address the damage caused by human production to the natural environment. By incorporating advanced science and technology into design, we can achieve low energy consumption, low pollution emissions, and high efficiency. The basic concepts of green design are:
- Traditional design primarily focuses on economic benefits.
Green design, on the other hand, prioritizes ecological benefits, emphasizing ecological benefits as the core. Ultimately, all redesign efforts should focus on ecological benefits, leveraging advanced technologies to achieve this goal.
- Redesign must consider the entire product production chain. Comprehensively considering all factors, focusing on reducing energy consumption, conserving resources, and reducing waste emissions, fundamentally addresses energy conservation and emission reduction issues that traditional design fails to address.
- Design must fully consider the interplay between humans, society, and nature.
Design must also fully consider the interplay between humans, society, and nature, ensuring a close integration of human survival and natural development.
There are three key paths to achieving green manufacturing
First, increase the development of new green products. For example, the successful invention of LED lighting not only avoids heavy metal pollution but also significantly improves luminous efficiency and lifespan, undoubtedly a major revolution in lighting technology. New green products like these can bring about revolutionary changes in lifestyles, consumption patterns, and environmental protection.
Second, strengthen the research and development of new green processes and technologies. These new processes and technologies can significantly reduce energy consumption and raw material consumption, while improving product quality and production scale. For example, the new dry production process in the cement industry and the continuous casting and rolling technology in the steel industry have greatly reduced production energy consumption and improved production efficiency, which can be regarded as a technological revolution in the industry. Finally, it is necessary to improve the legal and financial system of green manufacturing. This requires the use of legislation, financial policies and other means to support, guide and promote the development of green manufacturing. At the same time, improving the public's environmental awareness, cultivating talents with environmental literacy, and forming a social atmosphere of caring for the environment are also indispensable social foundations for promoting green manufacturing. There are many ways to achieve green manufacturing, but there are three key ones.
(1) We must increase the development of new green products.
The successful development of a new green product may bring about revolutionary progress that affects people's living habits, consumption patterns and the environment. For example, the successful invention of LED (Light Emitting Diode) lighting has avoided the pollution of heavy metals such as mercury and lead to the environment, solved the problem of mosquitoes gathering heat light sources affecting the sanitary environment, and increased the luminous efficiency to 80%~90%, which is more than double the luminous efficiency of incandescent lamps, and has increased the lifespan by 50 times. It has a faster response speed and is safer and more environmentally friendly. It is undoubtedly a revolution in the lighting industry.
(2) We must increase the development of new green processes and technologies.
The characteristics of new green processes are that the energy consumption and raw material consumption per unit product are greatly reduced, the quality of products is greatly improved, the scale of production and the level of automation are greatly improved, and the environmental friendliness is greatly enhanced. Typical cases in this regard are the new dry production process in the cement industry and the new continuous casting and rolling process in the steel industry. The new dry production process for cement, which uses suspended heat exchange and reaction as the core technology, has reduced the energy consumption per unit cement clinker by more than 50%, increased the scale of a single cement production line by dozens of times, significantly reduced the emission of dust and harmful gases, and reduced the investment per ton of cement by more than 60%. It can be said to be a revolution in the history of cement production technology.
(3) Continuously improve the social, legal, and financial systems of green manufacturing, so that the concept of green consumption can be deeply rooted in people's minds.
Social laws mainly refer to legislation related to resources, environment, environmental compensation, industrial space layout, social awareness, circular economy, occupational health and safety, etc. related to green manufacturing. People's desires and social needs are the driving force behind the development of the manufacturing industry. Enhancing people's environmental awareness, cultivating people with environmental literacy, creating a frugal and noble lifestyle, and forming a social atmosphere of caring for the environment and resisting extravagance are the social foundation for promoting green manufacturing.