Sustainable Production

The issues associated with sustainable production are among the most important facing the world in the early 21st century. While most of the scholarship in this area has been produced in the United States and Europe, not much has been written from a Canadian perspective. Sustainable Production establishes a Canadian presence in the sustainable production debate by analyzing the opportunities and constraints facing both the public and private sectors as Canada strives to move public policy and industrial practice forward.

Sustainable production focuses on the systems by which industrial economies produce goods and services and the ways in which investment and production decisions are influenced by public policy. One goal of sustainable production is to dematerialize production – minimizing energy and material extraction and throughput per unit of economic output. In its broader sense, sustainable production should simultaneously improve environmental quality and social well-being. Sustainable production envisions an industrial system that would maximize resource efficiency, minimize environmental impacts, and replenish natural capital, while providing safe and satisfying employment opportunities.

Sustainable Production will be of interest to scholars and students in business, public policy, and engineering, to policy makers, and to practitioners in firms and industry associations.