Sustainable production, allocation and consumption: creating steady-state economic structures in industrial ecology

Abstract

Industrial Ecology is an application of environmental management transcending the boundary of the individual firm. By comparing industrial systems to natural ecosystems, Industrial Ecology aims to emulate the sustainable state of the latter. Although research is flourishing, there are only very limited examples of Industrial Ecology in practice. Its proposed end state of a sustainable economic system is encapsulated in Thomas Graedel's "type III" system, where all ecosystem components live on their exchange products, and the whole system runs exclusively on solar radiation as its source of energy.This doctoral thesis is conceived from the recognition that the idea of Industrial Ecology at present is in conflict with the applications of it, and the field thus needs to be grounded in a solid body of theory. Therefore, this thesis examines for the first time the soundness of ideas and current practice of Industrial Ecology in the context of the fields of science concerned:Ecological economics has the purpose of understanding the relationship between ecological and economic systems. It is the recognition of the biophysical limits to economic activity that is applied to Industrial Ecology in this thesis. The aim of embedding the economic system into the natural system that ecological economics and Industrial Ecology have in common is examined in the light of research in theoretical ecology, understanding the dynamics of ecosystem development. The consequences for industrial ecological systems lie in the insight that food chains are merely the expression of underlying energetic relationships, and it is the latter that drive an ecosystem in its development towards a mature and stable state.stable state. As Industrial Ecology's method is to compare economic systems to natural systems, the soundness of this method needs to be ascertained. The translation of ideas from one area to another constitutes a use of metaphor, and it is in the valid transfer of ideas that Industrial Ecology has its merit. Consequently, a chapter of the thesis investigates the transfer of ideas in the context of Industrial Ecology. In a final analytical chapter, the idea of Industrial Ecology is compared to the realities of the current system of international business enterprise. By examining this system and the role of competition within it, both in its ecological and economic consequences, the conclusion is arrived at that Industrial Ecology constitutes a step away from an individualistic perspective in business management, and is therefore not directly and widely applicable in the current system.Building on these insights, the final chapter proposes a reconceptualisation and reembedding of Industrial Ecology. This is thought to be achieved by incorporating the cyclical ecosystem perspective into industrial ecological development. Further, it is shown that this development can be encouraged by government initiatives such as the implementation of an ecological tax reform.