Up to a month before the biannual conference of the International Society for Industrial Ecology, I hadn’t heard of this field.
Industrial ecology is the study of the flows of materials and energy in industrial and consumer activities, of the effects of these flows on the environment, and of the influences of economic, political, regulatory, and social factors on the flow, use, and transformation of resources. (U.S. National Academy of Engineering, 1994)
The first international conference of the ISIE was held in 2001, in the Netherlands. The organization has recently described the progress in the field:
… Read more (in a new tab)In the early days of industrial ecology, investigation of the soundness and utility of the biological analogy and efforts at eco-design were prominent. In the past decade, input-output analysis (especially multi-regional IOA), studies of resource criticality, integration of social science and operations research, agent-based/complexity modeling, urban metabolism and long-term socio-ecological research have become central to the field.
The influence of industrial ecology is significant and growing, and the analytical tools that are central to the field, such as life cycle assessment (LCA) and material flow analysis (MFA), are increasingly used in other disciplines. Both LCA and MFA are used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report to examine the embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from buildings, transportation, and other sectors. Additionally, industrial ecology specialists comprise the core of the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) International Resource Panel. They have authored five of the Panel’s seven reports since 2011.
Up to a month before the biannual conference of the International Society for Industrial Ecology, I hadn’t heard of this field.
Industrial ecology is the study of the flows of materials and energy in industrial and consumer activities, of the effects of these flows on the environment, and of the influences of economic, political, regulatory, and social factors on the flow, use, and transformation of resources. (U.S. National Academy of Engineering, 1994)
The first international conference of the ISIE was held in 2001, in the Netherlands. The organization has recently described the progress in the field:
… Read more (in a new tab)In the early days of industrial ecology, investigation of the soundness and utility of the biological analogy and efforts at eco-design were prominent. In the past decade, input-output analysis (especially multi-regional IOA), studies of resource criticality, integration of social science and operations research, agent-based/complexity modeling, urban metabolism and long-term socio-ecological research have become central to the field.
The influence of industrial ecology is significant and growing, and the analytical tools that are central to the field, such as life cycle assessment (LCA) and material flow analysis (MFA), are increasingly used in other disciplines. Both LCA and MFA are used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report to examine the embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from buildings, transportation, and other sectors. Additionally, industrial ecology specialists comprise the core of the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) International Resource Panel. They have authored five of the Panel’s seven reports since 2011.
