Technological and policy innovations toward cleaner development

Excerpt

For more than a decade, human’s ecological footprint exceeds the earth’s biocapacity for more than 1.6 times (Earth Overshoot Day 2022), suggesting that we consume and pollute the natural resource much faster than its regeneration. In 2020, we globally emitted 34.81 billion tons of carbon dioxide (Global Carbon Project 2021). Similarly, 80% of wastewater from our production and consumption is discharged back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, causing 1.8 billion people at risk of waterborne diseases because of the contamination of their drinking water source with pathogens and toxic contaminants (WWAP, 2017). Furthermore, annually, we generate 2.01 billion tons of municipal solid waste, 33% of which is not properly managed (The World Bank 2022). To sustain life and habitability of the earth, approaches to mitigating environmental impacts, ranging from end-of-pipe techniques to cleaner production and the current focus on circular economy, all aim to maintain environmental conditions or even to improve them. …