Closing the Loop in the Industrial Water Cycle

Concerns about the environment and the sustainability of the earth’s natural resources have accelerated rapidly to the forefront of global interest. In the midst of a global financial crisis, industrial manufacturing and processing operations are being confronted with the challenge of striking a balance between the environmental impacts of their activities and making a profit.

The origins of the global mega-trend of sustainable development can be traced back to the Brundtland Commission’s report in the 1980s, which made sustainability an international issue, defining sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". The report has been hailed as one of the most influential documents

of the last century — the actualisation of increasing worldwide concern about the environment. The Commission’s brief was to re-examine critical environment and development problems on the planet and to formulate realistic proposals to solve them, creating a “global agenda for change”.

The report approached the environmental and development issues confronting the world by representing them as one common challenge, to be approached by collective multilateral action, rather than through the pursuit of national self-interest. Not without its flaws, the Brundtland report nevertheless resulted in real global action — in the form of international agreements such as the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer, the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty designed to limit global greenhouse gas emissions, and international summits on sustainable development which have led to a comprehensive global plan of action in

every area in which humans impact on the environment.