A sustainable manufacturing or production in general is viewed by many governments and industries in various countries as the basis or key for a sustainable life / future by maintaining the status quo or by further increasing the wealth of their society. The view is focusing to a large extent on a sustainable energy and material supply, but partially also on education in case of limited energy and material resources in a country. It didn't take long that, after the idea of sustainable production, the idea of energy efficiency was introduced. The major idea is to improve the usage of the available energy resources by reducing fossil and non-regenerative energy sources and take advantages of regenerative or alternative sources like wind power, photovoltaic energy a.s.o. - This whole discussion is intensively diving by energy Prices. At present the oil Prices are falling from a very high Level and new sources from oil / gas sand or shale oil / gas have been made available. Which is putting the rather expensive regenerative Technologies under pressure. The question here is: for how Long? - In manufacturing engineering energy efficiency seems to mean basically reducing the necessary energy for the manufacture of the product to be produced. Mostly electrical machinery and processes are designed in a way to use less energy for the same task as before. However a real shift of the intention related to a sustainable production or society I can only see in the regenerative energy sources and an even more intensive recycling of materials. Reducing wast energy and resources is good, but not really sufficient I think. The Impact of an seemingly everlasting paradigm of economical increase and gain seems to have a larger and more complex impact on out societies and our life than expected or considered so far. Keep on doing as we have been doing by producing more and more of the same products, but only reducing the amount of material and energy per unit will not reduce the environmental impact and hence will further increase the effect on our health and life in many places. Is there a better paradigm than the present? What will be the next shift ? What will be necessary for it to come about?

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