INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY 507
countries (Strassert, 2001, 2002). Duchin did the pioneer work
to bring the IOA approach to industrial ecology (Duchin,
1992). More recently, the IOA approach has been linked with
LCA to produce a new method: economic input-output LCA
(EIO-LCA; Matthews and Mitchell, 2000).INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY IN PRACTICE
Micro-Level PracticeMicro industrial ecology’s practices are mostly centered on
firms and their products and processes. Firms are the most
important agents for technological innovation in market
economies. The persistent supply of greener products from
greener processes in facilities constitutes the microfoun-
dations of world environmental improvement. In addi-
tion, a present firm is not a sole “policy taker” any more.
To overcome the low efficiency of command-and-control
environmental regulation, many firms have become “policy
makers,” so far as the relationship between technology and
the environment is concerned.
Pollution prevention (P2), also termed “cleaner produc-
tion,” is industry’s primary attempt to improve upon passive
compliance with environmental regulations. In P2, attention is
turned to reducing the generation of pollution at its source, by
minimizing the use of, and optimizing the reuse or recycling
of, all materials, especially hazardous ones. The pioneer of
this approach is 3M’s Pollution Prevention Pays (3P) program
in 1975. It succeeded in avoiding 1 billion pounds of pollutant
emissions and saved over $500 million for the company from
1975 to 1992. Many companies were spurred to learn 3M’s
approach, and according to a recent survey, pollution preven-
tion has become an importance operational element for more
than 85% of manufacturing companies (Graedel and Howard-
Grenville, 2005).
While pollution prevention addresses a manufacturing
facility as it finds it, design for environment (DfE) is trans-
formational: it attempts to redesign products and processes
so as to optimize environmentally related characteristics.
Often used in concert with LCA, DfE enables design teams
to consider issues related to the entire life cycle of products
or processes, including materials selection, process design,
energy efficiency, product delivery, use, and reincarnation.
DfE practices are currently being implemented by many
firms, large and small.
DfE is mainly a technological approach. It can address
a wide range of environmental issues throughout a prod-
uct’s life cycle. However, its capability to address some
environmental impacts, especially in disposal of end-of-life
products, is limited: it can facilitate, but cannot ensure,
recycling. However, the approach designated “extended
producer responsibility” (EPR) complements the firm-level
practice from the perspective of policy. In this regard, most
Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development
countries encourage manufacturers to take greater respon-
sibility for their products in use, especially in postconsumer
stages. EPR follows the “polluter pays principle,” transfer-
ring the costs of waste management from local authorities tothose producers with greater influence on the characteristics
of products (Gertsakis et al., 2002).
It is foreseeable that the acceptance of EPR will, in turn,
intensify DfE activities in many firms. We thus begin to see
a sequence of environmentally related steps by responsible
industrial firms. The first is pollution prevention, which is
centered within a facility. The invention and adoption of
LCA next expands a company’s perspective to include the
upstream and downstream life stages of its products. Later
on, a core issue—sustainability—is brought to the table.
Some assessment methods have been developed to quantify
a facility’s sustainability, although this remains a work in
progress as of this writing.Meso-Level PracticeMost interfirm practices of industrial ecology relate to the
concept of industrial symbiosis and its realization in the
form of eco-industrial parks (EIPs). As Chertow (2000b)
puts it: “Industrial symbiosis engages traditionally separate
industries in a collective approach to competitive advantage
involving physical exchange of materials, energy, water, and/
or by-products. The keys to industrial symbiosis are collabo-
ration and the synergistic possibilities offered by geographic
proximity” (314).
The classic example of industrial symbiosis is Kalundborg,
a small Danish industrial area located about 100 km west of
Copenhagen. Its industrial symbiosis began in the 1970s as
several core partners (a power station, a refinery, and a phar-
maceutical firm) sought innovative ways of managing waste
materials (Cohen-Rosenthal et al., 2000).
Over time, many other industries and organizations have
become involved; the result is a very substantial sharing of
resources and a larger reduction in waste (Figure 3).
Industrial symbiosis thinking is implemented by but not
confined to EIPs. Chertow (2000b) has proposed a taxon-
omy of five different material-exchange types of industrial
symbiosis:- Through waste exchanges (e.g., businesses that
recycle or sell recovered materials through a third
party) - Within a facility, firm, or organization
- Among firms co-located in a defined EIP
- Among local firms that are not co-located
- Among firms organized “virtually” across a
broader region
Only Type 3 can be viewed as a traditional EIP. No matter
which type, or on what scale, industrial symbiosis has proven
to be beneficial both to industries and to the environment.Macro-Level PracticeAt macro scales (e.g., a city, a country, or even the planet),
MFA has proven to be an important tool for considering the
relationships between the use of materials and energy use,C009_002_r03.indd 507C009_002_r03.indd 507 11/18/2005 10:30:26 AM11/18/2005 10:30:26 AM