Industrial ecology
The science of industrial ecology emerged in the late
1980's and refers to the study of the physical, chemical and
biological interactions and interrelationships within and among
industrial and ecological systems. Applications of industrial
ecology involve identifying and implementing strategies for
industrial systems to more closely emulate harmonious and
sustainable ecological systems. Industrial ecology can be
considered a comprehensive approach to implementing sustainable,
industrial behaviour; it is the shifting of industrial
process from linear (open loop) systems, in which resource and
capital investments move through the system to become waste, to a
closed loop system where wastes become inputs for new
processes.
Industrial ecology was popularised in 1989 in a Scientific
American article by Robert Frosch and Nicholas E Gallopoulos.
Frosch and Gallopoulos' vision was "why would our industrial system
not behave like an ecosystem, where the wastes of a species may be
resource to another species? Why would not the outputs of an
industry be the inputs of another, thus reducing use of raw
materials, pollution, and saving on waste treatment?"
Industrial ecology proposes not to see industrial systems (for
example a factory, an ecoregion, or national or global economy) as
being separate from the biosphere, but to consider it as a
particular case of an ecosystem - but based on infrastructural
capital rather than on natural capital. It is the idea that if
natural systems do not have waste in them, we should model our
systems after natural ones if we want them to be sustainable.
Industrial ecology is practiced throughout the concrete supply
chain.
References and further reading
R A Frosch, N E Gallopoulos, Strategies for Manufacturing, Scientific American, 1989
Other industrial ecology links