A lot of work has been done in the last 10 to 20 years improving production processes so that they have less of an ecological impact. Cleaner Production aims to promote manufacturing techniques that: give off fewer toxic pollutants into the air, water ways or soil; are less wasteful, more resource efficient; and use less energy. These ways of minimising the ecological impacts are now well established and continuous improvement in this area should be part of every business-as-usual scenario.
However, whilst minimising the impact of production processes on 'natural' ecologies is important, such actions do not yet add up to being sustainments. Even if all forms of production were as clean as possible, the world would still be a long way from being sustainable at its current levels of production.
In short, the cleanliness of the production process is irrelevant to the issue of cleanliness of the product. It is possible to implement 'worlds best practice cleaner production measures' on a product whose sole function is ecological destruction.
Sustainments arise out of the awareness that cleaner production must also question the product being produced if it is to contribute to the development of our sustainability. Cleaner production is only worthwhile if it aims to change the whole nature of the 'product' rather than just improve the production process.
The sustainment version of cleaner production would involve redesigning the product so that it sustains 'cleaner' ways of living and working. Such a sustainment could be the development of a service relation that either extends the life of existing products, or responsibly replaces existing products.
