510 INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY
environmental impact, and public policy. An example, the
global copper cycle in 1994, is shown in Figure 4. During
1994, global copper inputs to production were about 83%
ore, 11% old scrap, 4% new scrap, and 2% reworked tail-
ings. About 12 Tg of copper entered into use, while nearly
4 Tg were discarded, giving a net addition to in-use copper
stock of 7–8 Tg.
Some 53% of the copper that was discarded in various
forms was recovered and reused or recycled through waste
management. The total environmental loss, including tailings,
slag, and landfills, was more than 3 Tg and equaled one third
the rate of natural extraction. All of this information provides
perspectives impossible to achieve from a less comprehensive
analysis.
Material-flow studies can address another macro
issue of industrial ecology—dematerialization, which is
the reduction in material use per unit of service output.
Dematerialization can contribute to environmental sustain-
ability in two ways: by ameliorating material-scarcity con-
straints to economic development, and by reducing waste
and pollution. Dematerialization may occur naturally as a
consequence of new technologies (e.g., the transistor replac-
ing the vacuum tube), but can also result from a more effi-
cient provisioning of services, thus minimizing the number
of identical products needed to provide a given service to a
large population.SUMMARYIt is difficult to provide a holistic and systematic picture of a
young field with its evolving metaphors, concepts, methods,
and applications. We attempt to do so graphically, however,
in the “spacetime” display of Figure 5a. In this figure, the
tools and methods of industrial ecology are located dimen-
sionally, with time and space increasing from the bottom left
to the upper right, as does complexity. The figure demon-
strates that industrial ecology operates over very large ranges
of space and time, and that its tools and methods provide a
conceptual roadmap to sustainability.
As an emerging field, industrial ecology has a long
list of areas where research and development are needed
(Figure 5b). The urgent theoretical needs are to develop
general theories for industrial-ecosystem organization
and function, and to relate technology more rigorously to
sustainability. Experimental industrial ecology needs to
complete a set of analytical tools for the design of EIPs,
the dynamics of industrial food webs, and the metabo-
lism of cities. Finally, applied objectives can be fulfilled
through maintaining the progress of DfE, developing the
policy-related aspects of industrial ecology, and promot-
ing industrial ecology in developing countries. The tasks
are substantial, but carrying them out is likely to provide
a crucial framework for society in the next few decades,
as we seek to reconcile our use of Earth’s resources with
the ultimate sustainability of the planet and its inhabitants,
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