Integrated environmental protection

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Integrated environmental protection is one of two avoidance technologies in environmental protection . It reduces the environmental impact by using more environmentally friendly products and production processes. Examples are water-soluble paints or in-process water recycling .

In contrast to end-of-pipe technology , however, this measure is more difficult to implement because it is more time-consuming and expensive to make the production process more environmentally friendly than simply to use reduction methods at the end of the process - although lower consumption would also mean higher efficiency .

Nevertheless, this approach has gradually gained acceptance internationally, according to an empirical study by the Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) . Accordingly, in 2003 integrated environmental protection dominated as a strategy over traditional end-of-pipe approaches. Of the seven OECD countries examined, Germany had the lowest proportion of integrated environmental protection with 57.5 percent, while Japan came out on top with 86.5 percent.

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