Joint production: When We Produce Not Only What We Want to Produce

Every production of a material good leads to a simultaneous production of so-called joint products, which are often harmful to the environment. With the rapid economic growth since the industrial revolution, the amount of harmful joint products has also increased, causing severe damages to humans and the environment to this day. This was possible because the creation of joint products was long considered incidental. Traditional economics considered joint production, but only after it had already occurred, for example, when a river was already polluted. The approach presented in this chapter takes a different path: We will systematically develop the concept of joint production. With this approach, we create a foundation, a so-called “Archimedean point”, from which we can start in the consideration of any environmental problem. We demonstrate that joint production a) is thermodynamically conditioned and b) therefore must necessarily be considered before any production takes place, so that environmental problems do not arise in the first place.