A 20-year retrospective of the National Cleaner Production Centres programme

Abstract

In the framework of their joint global Cleaner Production Programme, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme officially established the first eight National Cleaner Production Centres in 1995. In 2015 there are 58 centres operating in 56 countries. This article, based on a 2014 structured questionnaire completed by 41 out of the 50 centres established between 1995 and 2011, reports on how their expectations about a world-wide programme played out over the 20 years since its official launch. Two of their twelve expectations were exceeded; five were met; two were partially met and two were not met. Four unanticipated activities expanded the environmental services provided by the centres. Meeting the two documented unmet expectations—that the services should green entire industrial sectors and result in measurable improvements in environmental quality—will require the centres to deepen their effective impact on entire industrial sectors by scaling up the application of Cleaner Production and mainstreaming its policy, financial and related incentives. They will need to take on catalytic roles in nationally significant strategies for the resource-efficient greening of industry, which would require finding a balance between public good service delivery, aimed at putting cleaner production and resource efficiency on the agenda of industry, and applied sector and company specific service delivery for revenue generation and the benefit of companies.