Environmental Technology

Environmental technology, "green technology" or "clean technology" (also abbreviated as CleanTech) is the application of the environmental sciences to conserve the natural environment and resources, and by curbing the negative impacts of human involvement.

• Sustainable development is the core of environmental technologies. When applying sustainable development as a solution for environmental issues, the solutions need to be socially equitable, economically viable, and environmentally sound. Green anarchists, criticise the concept due to their view of technology requiring the exploitation of the environment, thus making the idea contradictory.
• Some environmental technologies that retain sustainable development are; recycling, water purification, sewage treatment, remediation, flue gas treatment, solid waste management, renewable energy, and others.
  

Related technologies

• Some technologies assist directly with energy conservation, while other technologies are emerging that help the environment by reducing the amount of waste produced by human activities. Energy sources such as solar power create less problems for the environment than traditional sources of energy like coal and petroleum. Scientists continue to search for clean energy alternatives to our current power production methods. Some technologies such as anaerobic digestion produce renewable energy from waste materials.
  
• The global reduction of greenhouse gases is dependent on the adoption of energy conservation technologies at industrial level as well as this clean energy generation. That includes using unleaded petrol, solar energy and hybrid cars which do not produce a lot of harmful gases.
  
• Since electric motors consume 60% of all electricity generated, advanced energy efficient electric motor (and electric generator) technology that are cost effective to encourage their application, such as the brushless wound-rotor doubly-fed electric machine and energy saving module, can dramatically cut the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulphur dioxide (SO2) that would otherwise be introduced to the atmosphere.

Sustainable Development

• Sustainable development has been defined as balancing the fulfillment of human needs with the protection of the natural environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but in the indefinite future. The term was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
• The field of sustainable development can be conceptually divided into four general dimensions: social, economic, environmental and institutional. The first three dimensions address key principles of sustainability, while the final dimension addresses key institutional policy and capacity issues.
  

Waste Management

• Waste management is the collection, transport, processing, recycling or disposal of waste materials, usually ones produced by human activity, in an effort to reduce their effect on human health or local aesthetics or amenity. A subfocus in recent decades has been to reduce waste materials' effect on the natural world and the environment and to recover resources from them. Waste management can involve solid, liquid or gaseous substances with different methods and fields of expertise for each.
• Waste management practices differ for developed and developing nations, for urban and rural areas, and for residential, industrial, and commercial producers. Waste management for non-hazardous residential and institutional waste in metropolitan areas is usually the responsibility of local government authorities, while management for non-hazardous commercial and industrial waste is usually the responsibility of the generator.
• The waste hierarchy refers to the "3 Rs" reduce, reuse and recycle, which classify waste management strategies according to their desirability. It has remained the cornerstone of most waste minimisation strategies.
  

The WBG

• The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations responsible for providing finance and advice to countries for the purposes of economic development and eliminating poverty. The Bank came into formal existence on 27 December 1945 following international ratification of the Bretton Woods agreements, which emerged from the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference (1 July - 22 July 1944). Commencing operations on 25 June 1946, it approved its first loan on 9 May 1947 ($250m to France for postwar reconstruction, in real terms the largest loan issued by the Bank to date).
  
• Its five agencies are: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD); International Finance Corporation (IFC); International Development Association (IDA); Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). The term "World Bank" generally refers to the IBRD and IDA, whereas the World Bank Group is used to refer to the institutions collectively.
• The World Bank's (i.e. the IBRD and IDA's) activities are focused on developing countries, in fields such as human development (e.g. education, health), agriculture and rural development (e.g. irrigation, rural services), environmental protection (e.g. pollution reduction, establishing and enforcing regulations), infrastructure (e.g. roads, urban regeneration, electricity), and governance (e.g. anti-corruption, legal institutions development).