Industrial Ecology and Sustainability

The following sections are included:

• Dedication
• Preface
• About the Authors
• Contents

The following sections are included:

• Common-pool resources are threatened by individual self-serving actions unless some form of community action intervenes to sustain the resources
• Technological innovations are proposed to be the enablers of the waves of economic development and decline
• The “master equation” of industrial ecology proposes that evolving environmental impact is the product of growth in global population, affluence, and technology

The following sections are included:

• The material footprints of modern societies accelerated rapidly in the mid-20th century, and show no signs of levelling off
• Consumption is ultimately the product of individual decisions, and sustainable levels of consumption at the societal level can only be achieved by influencing individual choice
• Attempts to measure social progress in different countries suggest that material stocks and energy use are not directly related to perceived quality of life, thereby suggesting that a less material-oriented world might become one that is accepted and valued by most people worldwide

The following sections are included:

• For millennia, humans have been employing nature’s bounty with little or no appreciation of the fact that the gifts provided by nature have limits
• Industrial ecologists measure the pressures on nature by three approaches: (1) sustainable yield assessments, (2) carrying capacity evaluations, and (3) planetary boundary exceedances
• The United Nations measures human progress by the Sustainable Development Goals and the degree to which those goals are being met. Many of the goals are closely related to industrial ecology concerns and methodologies

The following sections are included:

• Industrial ecology and sustainable engineering reject the concept of waste in favor of reuse, as is the case in nature
• Sustainable engineering can be regarded as the operational arm of industrial ecology. Together, they provide a template for the environmental and societally sustainable redesign of the modern world
• Six comprehensive goals and 10 operational tools constitute the basic framework of the practice of industrial ecology and sustainable engineering

The following sections are included:

• Biological and industrial organisms share some (but not all) common characteristics
• The types of biological and industrial systems provide insight into the degrees of reuse of resources
• Some analytical methods developed by biologists can be adapted to industrial ecology

The following sections are included:

• Systems are fundamental in the study of biological and industrial ecology and can be characterized as simple or complex
• Systems analysis studies complex systems holistically rather than focusing on individual components, and addresses the driving factors in technology and society that manifest themselves in the properties of a system
• The study of biological metabolism provides a conceptual model for understanding the complex materials network (or “industrial metabolism”) of resource extraction, materials processing, product manufacture, and eventual material loss at end of useful product life
• Metabolic analysis in industrial ecology can be applied at a variety of spatial or analytical scales, from an industrial facility that transforms and utilizes a variety of resources to a country that hosts resource extraction facilities and is dependent on ocean shipping for most of its final products that it utilizes

The following sections are included:

• The benefits provided by materials in use in society explain the effort expended to acquire and utilize the materials
• Because no routine data collection exists for material stocks, estimates of in-use stocks are potentially problematic
• In-use stocks are predominantly functions of population, especially people with high incomes and/or those in large urban areas

The following sections are included:

• Material flow analysis (MFA) is the methodology that is used to construct a metabolism for a chosen industrial material
• MFAs can be generated at different spatial levels and organizational types
• Dynamic MFAs construct an industrial metabolism over time, thereby revealing in-use material stock dynamics

The following sections are included:

• Recycling that preserves the inherent properties of a material (“functional recycling”) is currently compromised by applications that are inherently dissipative or by applications for which recycling technology has not yet been developed
• Functional recycling rates for many materials are very low
• Few products are designed from the start with recycling in mind; this renders efficient recycling of materials and parts extremely difficult and expensive

The following sections are included:

• Input–output analysis uses a sector-based model of an economy to model the links between production and consumption and to analyze how demand for goods and services causes activity throughout the economy
• Environmentally Extended Input–Output (EEIO) analysis incorporates sector-specific information on environmental burdens to link consumption with measures of emissions, resource use, and environmental impacts
• EEIO modeling has become one of the most versatile and popular tools within industrial ecology, spawning numerous innovations, including the use of physical input–output tables (PIOTs) to understand material flows through the economy

The following sections are included:

• Products move through a life cycle, including the extraction of raw materials, manufacturing and assembly, transportation, use, and waste management
• Product life cycles are interconnected through various materials and processes
• Emissions and environmental impacts can occur at any point in the life cycle of a product; it is often difficult to predict the largest contributors
• Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) provides a formalized, quantitative approach to analyzing the environmental impacts of a product or process

The following sections are included:

• The fundamental building block of a life cycle assessment is the unit process, each with discrete inputs and outputs, and linked together to form a product system
• The life cycle inventory is the complete list of material and energy flows for a product system and is made up of foreground data (collected directly) and background data (linked through existing datasets)
• Life cycle impact assessment characterization models quantify how flows in the inventory cause environmental impacts, either in terms of environmental changes (midpoint) or damages (endpoint)
• Proper interpretation of the results includes consideration of uncertainty and reflection on whether the LCA has adhered to its goal and scope; iteration is common

The following sections are included:

• Industrial ecology often employs economic analyses to complement environmental and social sustainability tools
• Techno-economic assessment and life cycle costing provide a life cycle approach to the financial analyses of products, processes, and projects
• Valuation can be used to convert environmental and social benefits impacts into economic terms in order to facilitate communication and comparison

The following sections are included:

• Networks are commonly found in nature, in industrial ecosystems, and in human interactions. The tools of network analysis apply to all
• Network analysis in industrial ecology is of particular value in understanding corporate and societal supply chains
• A second major use of network analysis in industrial ecology is in the study of corporate interactions in industrial symbiosis networks

The following sections are included:

• Data science techniques are offering new capabilities to industrial ecologists for recognizing trends, gathering data, and creating predictive models
• Innovative industrial ecology work has applied data science techniques to sustainability problems in transportation, the built environment, and manufacturing processes
• Open-source code and data platforms can enable collaboration and transparency, especially around common data sets

The following sections are included:

• The abundances of the elements vary widely, and the use of the more abundant elements recognizes the potential for more dependable supplies and lower costs
• Materials choice depends on anticipated uses and the associated material properties that will be needed
• The growth of urban regions worldwide has stimulated a corresponding growth in resource demand

The following sections are included:

• Metals are the foundation of all materials science and technology and have been for millennia
• Metals are predominantly used in alloy form in order to provide materials of enhanced physical and chemical properties
• The functional rates of recycling of metals tend not to be high, especially for elements and alloys used in small quantities in complex products

The following sections are included:

• Almost all plastics are currently made from petrochemicals, but bio-based substitutes are possible in nearly every end use
• Packaging dominates the use of plastics, has short lifetimes, and has very low recycling rates
• It is generally not possible to recycle plastics so that they can be reused in modern commercial products

The following sections are included:

• Life cycle assessment and material flow analysis of food systems provide much useful information, but constraints are often imposed by data limitations
• Food production, use, and loss, the use of water for food production, and the consumption and impacts of energy for food production and delivery form a nexus of interaction suitable for grouped analysis
• Food demand is proportional to population and per capita wealth, both of which are anticipated to increase markedly in the next several decades

The following sections are included:

• Natural and artificial fibers see widespread use in clothing, home furnishings, industrial applications, and floor coverings
• As of 2020 and beyond, material flow analyses for pulp, paper, and textiles are available globally and for a few countries
• Composite materials combine strength with lightweight and are used increasingly in transportation and other specialized applications

The following sections are included:

• Construction minerals have been used by humans since the dawn of history and continue to be widely used today
• Except for cement, which is capable of being exported at a profit over long distances, construction minerals are mostly used geographically near to where they are extracted
• The environmental impacts of the acquisition and processing of construction minerals are large and growing

The following sections are included:

• Energy use is a prerequisite for extracting and processing materials, which enables societal improvement
• The embodied energy of metals, plastics, and fibers are all highly significant to greenhouse gas emissions, thus suggesting the benefit of rapid transition to renewable energy sources for material production
• Complex and globally integrated supply chains for major technological products complicate attempts to minimize the embodied energy for many manufactured products

The following sections are included:

• Critical materials are those with limited or restricted supply that are nonetheless embodied in products deemed to be of vital importance to industries or governments
• Depending on the corporate or government entity conducting the evaluation, as many as half of the elements employed by modern technology can be designated as critical
• Given the broad palette of materials in many of today’s commercial products, avoiding the use of critical materials is increasingly difficult

The following sections are included:

• Sustainable design frameworks provide general guidance for creating sustainable products and processes
• Design software used by designers, engineers, and architects is increasingly incorporating environmental considerations to allow for rapid assessment and iteration to meet environmental targets
• Heuristics and ‘rules-of-thumb’ allow for widespread implementation of IE-informed recommendations but should be updated based on changing circumstances

The following sections are included:

• The remanufacturing of products preserves the productive life of materials and products, saves energy, and minimizes waste
• Product remanufacturing is aided by close links between the original manufacturer and the remanufacturer, links that have often not been well established
• The business of remanufacturing, despite its materials and environmental benefits, is quite challenging and is poorly supported by government policy in general

The following sections are included:

• The analytical tools of industrial ecology (MFA, LCA, EEIO, Criticality, etc.) offer an approach complementary to those of traditional business tools
• Improving resource efficiency in industry often leads to economic savings
• Businesses are increasingly adopting environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) policies and strategies, often including reporting on sustainability topics

The following sections are included:

• Telecoupling is the study of human and natural interactions over distances near and far
• Telecoupling enables the interchange of natural and industrial products that have the potential to improve people’s lives but also results in the generation and translation of environmental impacts
• From an industrial ecology perspective, telecoupling presents challenges in acquiring and interpreting data, but the process provides insights not otherwise available

The following sections are included:

• Because island ecosystems are largely isolated from external influences, they are useful in studies of species interactions and resource use and loss
• The capabilities of monitoring material stocks and flows in systems largely decoupled from other systems make islands also a good resource for industrial ecology studies
• Simple industrial systems mimic the advantages of islands as objects of study given their restricted input and output flows

The following sections are included:

• Holons are self-organizing interconnected systems of organisms (natural, technological, or societal)
• A holarchy is a system of systems in which information but not control is exchanged between holons
• Holarchic analysis is increasingly used in such varied areas as health care and manufacturing. In industrial ecology, holarchic analysis is used to assess materials networks, interactions among organizations, and the energy implications of development

The following sections are included:

• A symbiosis is an interaction between organisms, biological or industrial, usually with benefits to one or both of the entities involved
• Industrial ecosystems emerge, often by accident, when industries located near each other discover that resource exchanges are mutually beneficial
• Industrial symbioses, especially if planned by governments, often merge resource flows between public and private entities

The following sections are included:

• Healthcare is energy- and material-intensive and highly connected to other sectors of the economy
• Environmentally extended input–output modeling of healthcare consumption has shown that it is a major contributor to resource use and environmental impact, comprising about 5% of greenhouse gas emissions
• Many healthcare organizations and clinicians want to make greener choices and are using life cycle assessment to compare different medical products and procedures
• Major disruptions to healthcare supply chains have led to shortages of vital medicines and materials, and alternate investments are informed by criticality assessment

The following sections are included:

• Infrastructure represents a large portion of society’s material stocks, primarily in the form of construction minerals and steel
• Environmental impacts of infrastructure construction and maintenance of infrastructure are important in absolute terms, and should ideally be included when conducting life cycle assessment
• Infrastructure is closely associated with land use decisions that have longterm impacts on mobility and human geography
• Because infrastructure undergoes maintenance, refurbishment, and perhaps replacement, it may have no effective end of life and so requires rethinking the life cycle assessment approaches originally devised for products with finite lifetimes

The following sections are included:

• Urban areas concentrate on people as well as material stocks and represent the majority of human demand for energy and materials
• Urban metabolism uses the analogy of the city as an organism, tracking inputs of nutrients, growth of physical stocks, and waste outputs
• Urban industrial ecology studies map material stocks and flows in space and time, enabling better infrastructure planning, materials management, and understanding of material inequities

The following sections are included:

• Unlike material flow analysis, which examines what occurred in the past, and in-use stock analysis, which looks at materials presently in use, industrial ecology scenarios enable and encourage thinking and planning about the future
• Scenarios are not predictions but are well-grounded stories about how the future might unfold under different constraints and opportunities
• Scenarios are policy-relevant and link industrial ecology to societal decision-making

The following sections are included:

• An important theme within industrial ecology studies socio-technical systems, recognizing that our industrial system is not only a network of physical stocks and flows but also of information and controls, influenced by social, cultural, and governance factors
• Human behavior is a critical driver of how technologies are designed and used and must be accounted for in accounting of stocks and flows
• Servicizing responds to increased demand in environmentally beneficial ways: it can save materials, encourage reuse, and generate fewer and less problematic environmental impacts
• Governments at all levels can take actions to decouple between consumer demand and environmental impacts by adopting policies to encourage servicizing, low-carbon modes of transportation and recreation, and sharing economy

The following sections are included:

• Growing populations and increasing per capita incomes are resulting in rapidly increasing demands for resources
• Supplies of some important resources appear unlikely to meet demand by mid-century or end-of-century
• In the short term, innovative technology may be sufficient to achieve supply/demand balance; in the longer term, constraints on demand may be required

The following sections are included:

• A circular economy is one in which reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling are strongly favored over disposal
• Factors such as elemental complexity in products, designs that are impediments to efficient recycling, and basic thermodynamics make a comprehensive circular economy impossible
• Nonetheless, a semi-circular global economy has the potential to provide major benefits for Earth’s people and for the planet itself

The following sections are included:

• Humanity’s current path of resource consumption and environmental degradation appears potentially unsustainable
• The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals provide a reasonable set of targets for achieving planetary-wide sustainability, equity, and lives worth living. Industrial ecology insights are crucial for achieving many of the goals
• Sustainability in the 21st century will require a future in which natural and human systems prosper together on an evolving planet

We close this book by recalling the connections between many of the topics that have been discussed — topics that link the universe and its generation of the elements with human acquisition of ores and fluids from Earth’s crust, the processing of these starting materials into the forms used by industry, their employment in the manufacture of products, and the use of those products in our everyday lives…

The following sections are included:

• Units of Measurement in Industrial Ecology
• Diagrams and Displays Used in Industrial Ecology (and Elsewhere)
• Glossary
• Index