Green engineering

Green engineering is the design, commercialization and use of processes and products that are feasible and economical while:^[1]

• Reducing the generation of pollution at the source.
• Minimizing the risk to human health and the environment.

Anastas, P.T., and Zimmerman, J.B., "Design through the Twelve Principles of Green Engineering", Env. Sci. and Tech., 37, 5, 95 - 101, 2003.

1. Inherent Rather Than Circumstantial - Designers need to strive to ensure that all materials and energy inputs and outputs are as inherently nonhazardous as possible.
2. Prevention Instead of Treatment - It is better to prevent waste than to treat or clean up waste after it is formed.
3. Design for Separation - Separation and purification operations should be designed to minimize energy consumption and materials use.
4. Maximize Efficiency - Products, processes, and systems should be designed to maximize mass, energy, space, and time efficiency.
5. Output-Pulled Versus Input-Pushed - Products, processes, and systems should be "output pulled" rather than "input pushed" through the use of energy and materials.
6. Conserve Complexity - Embedded entropy and complexity must be viewed as an investment when making design choices on recycle, reuse, or beneficial disposition.
7. Durability Rather Than Immortality - Targeted durability, not immortality, should be a design goal.
8. Meet Need, Minimize Excess - Design for unnecessary capacity or capability (e.g., "one size fits all") solutions should be considered a design flaw.
9. Minimize Material Diversity - Material diversity in multicomponent products should be minimized to promote disassembly and value retention.
10. Integrate Material and Energy Flows - Design of products, processes, and systems must include integration and interconnectivity with available energy and materials flows.
11. Design for Commercial "Afterlife" - Products, processes, and systems should be designed for performance in a commercial "afterlife."
12. Renewable Rather Than Depleting - Material and energy inputs should be renewable rather than depleting.