in the previous module we talked about the idea of the Anthropocene as a
recognition to the fundamental effect that industrial economies are having on the global Ecosystem. In this video
we will continue on with this theme by talking about the subject of industrial ecology.
Industrial ecology has arisen over the past few decades as the study of these coupled
environmental and industrial systems
offering us a systems-based approach
to modelling, designing and managing industrial systems in relation to the natural environment.
Industrial ecology as a subject is both
interdisciplinary and holistic. Thus it is a very broad area giving it a number of different
interpretations the most expansive
definitions
Interpreted in a generalized sense as a means to achieving sustainability
But this is a somewhat open-end definition. A more common definition would read something like this:
Industrial ecology is the study of material and energy flows through
industrial systems. Or on its most practical level it may be understood as simply a set of tools for achieving
energy efficiency and high environmental standards through lifecycle, assessment and
material flow accounting among other tools that are commonly used in the field.
Although industrial ecology only really came of age in the 1990s its foundations were laid in the decades before this
Robert Ayres is recognised for bringing together many of the basic ideas that have comprised industrial ecology since the late
1960s. He
points to the importance of examining
material and energy flows in a systemic framework both in order to truly understand them and to develop effective
policies for managing these resources.
His work was groundbreaking in the introduced
Thermodynamics to the area aras was one of the earliest
Scientists to bring second law notions into industrial ecology and his work
stressed the importance of Exergy as the proper measurement in studying industrial energy use
the term industrial ecology was then popularized following the publication in
1989 of a seminal article in Science America by Robert Rushton and Nicolas Galapagos
following this event the field developed during the
1990s and it spawned many academic programs several journals and an international society.
Today the influence of industrial ecology is
significant and growing and the analytical tools that are central to the field are increasingly used in other disciplines.
Recent publications in top scientific journals signal the coming of age to the field on a more practical level
Industrial ecology principles are also emerging in various policy realms such as the united nations and China recently
promoting the concept of the circular economy.
Probably the foundational and overarching insight of industrial ecology is as the name implies
understanding industrial economies in relation to and as extensions of natural Ecosystems a
recognition that both industrial and natural Ecosystems are made from the same basic materials and substances and
Subject to the same basic thermodynamic principles governing their structure and dynamics
industrial ecology is based on the same general paradigm as the
Anthropocene that is to say a recognition that industrial economies are now deeply embedded within the global Eco sphere and that
We now need to develop synergistic solutions for integrating the two systems in order to enable their sustainable
coexistence
Within this context industrial ecology can be seen as the practical solution for designing and managing
sustainable systems of technology
Thus a central idea here is that of biomimicry?
where biomimicry means the imitation of the models systems and structures of
ecosystems for the purpose of designing and managing
industrial systems as
Such it is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating
nature's Patterns and strategies within ecosystems
natural solutions that have evolved over a prolonged period and have withstood the test of time to prove themselves as
sustainable and effective
Industrial ecology includes a number of principles that underpin the subject and form its theoretical foundations.
The most important of which include the idea of industrial metabolism,
which is concerned with the flow of materials and energy through industrial systems at different scales as
described by the principles of thermodynamics.
Second major Principle is not of systems thinking industrial ecology
recognizes the need for a holistic perspective
went in with coupled industrial ecological systems as such it is based upon the ideas of systems theory.
A third major idea is that of synergies as captured in the term industrial symbiosis.
Here a primary consideration is how the different components
interact with each other and how to design them towards constructive synergistic outcomes.
Lastly and associated with this is the principle of recyclable 'TI and feedback loops
Converting linear systems into nonlinear cyclical processes through identifying and closing the feedback loops.
We'll go over all of these in more detail to get a better understanding of them
As with systems ecology,
thermodynamics is the theoretical backbone to industrial ecology. As with ecosystems, the principles of
thermodynamics provide the basic supporting context by telling us, what is physically possible given the available resources?
Industrial systems and more precisely the global industrial economy as a whole can be understood and analyzed as a network of
Industrial processes that extract resources from the Ecosystem and transform these resources into commodities
that can be brought and sold to meet the needs of human societies.
As with ecosystems, the industrial economy is a network through which energy and resources are processed.
In this case we're talking about a global supply network composed of many different nodes as the resources are extracted,
refined and synthesised during various production processes,
distributed through various logistic and commercial networks and then consumed by end users.
Within this context industrial ecology seeks to quantify the material flows and
document the industrial processes that make modern society with this industrial infrastructure function.
This flow of resources is also called an industrial metabolism.
The idea of an industrial metabolism was first proposed by Robert Ayres. It can be understood as the
total use of materials and energy throughout an entire
Industrial process such as manufacturing a car or producing a liter of milk.
This includes the sources,
transportation, use, reuse, cycling and
disposal of all industrial materials as well as the energy needed at each step.
The goal is to study the flow of materials through the economy in order to better understand
the complex linkages in our socio-technical systems and the primary sources and causes of waste.
Next, systems theory is a fundamental part of the industrial ecology approach.
Industrial ecology has been defined as a systems based,
interdisciplinary discourse that seeks to understand emergent behaviour of complex integrated
human natural systems.
Coupled Socio technical and environmental systems are invariably complex,
consisting of many densely interacting and
Interdependent heterogeneous components. In such a context, it becomes very important to gain a basic understanding
to the overall system of interest on its possible many different levels and a basic understanding
for the primary interactions between the subsystems. With this, Holistic view
Industrial ecology
recognizes that solving problems must involve understanding the connections that exist between the systems.
Various aspects cannot be viewed in isolation.
Often changes in one part of the overall system can propagate and cause changes in another part.
Thus, you can only understand a problem if you look at its parts in relation to the whole.
Narrow analytical reasoning in such complex systems can often lead to
simply moving a problem from one place in the system to another, without any net gain.
Another key Idea within industrial ecology is that of material and energy cycling.
As observed, within the many cycling processes found in ecosystems, where resources are
continuously cycled through the system,
industrial ecology is very much concerned with the shifting of industrial processes from linear
open-loop systems, in which resources and capital investment move through the system's become waste, to a closed-loop
system,
Where waste can become inputs for new processes based on a natural paradigm,
claiming that an industrial ecsystem may behave in a similar way to the natural ecosystem wherein
everything gets recycled.
On the macro level, this takes the form of the circular economy.
The circular economy is grounded in the study of feedback loops and
nonlinear systems a major outcome of this is the notion of
optimizing the cyclical processes in the system rather than components,
resulting in a focus on function and the services that deliver those functions instead of the discrete products themselves.
As a generic notion, I chose from a number of more specific approaches
including cradle-to-grave design and lifecycle assessment.
The central idea is switching from an open-loop model of "take, make, and dispose"
industrial processes and consumption that creates a dead-end effect,
towards trying to identify and close these loops in enabling a more
self-sustaining economy.
Coupled to the idea of feedback loops is that of industrial symbiosis,
where symbiosis means a mutually beneficial relationship
between the different components of a system.
Industrial symbiosis is a subset of industrial ecology with a particular focus on
material and energy exchange through initiatives that are aimed at achieving sharing and
coordination among diverse sectors of an industry. As such industrial symbiosis
looks at engaging diverse organizations or industrial systems to create networks that foster
reusability,
collaboration, co-innovation and other forms of synergistic exchange.
A simple example of this would be a wastewater treatment plant,
providing water for a power station and the power station in turn supplying steam for an industrial user.
Another example would be the use of tyre shred or
plastic pellet waste from apache output that can be sold on to other businesses as valued inputs. In this way,
industrial symbiosis systems can collectively optimize material and energy used to achieve
efficiencies beyond those achievable by any industrial components alone.
Self-organizing, symbiosis is a model where an industrial Ecosystem emerges from the decision by Private actors in meeting
Such goals as cost reduction or revenue enhancement. The industrial initiative typically starts small in a bottom-up fashion,
and if successful more follows often out of ongoing mutual self-interest
in
the early stages there may be no consciousness by participants of the industrial symbiosis or
inclusion in an industrial Ecosystem
but this can develop over time the project can be strengthened by more formal frameworks for
cooperation after initial successes.
A classic example of this
is the Kallenbach symbiosis, an industrial Ecosystem in Denmark. Here several linkages of
byproducts and waste heat can be traced between numerous entities such as large power plants, an oil refinery,
a pharmaceutical plants, a
plasterboard Pachy an enzyme manufacturer a waste company and the city itself.
The industrial symbiosis at Kalundborg
spontaneously evolved from a series of micro initiatives over a long time scale in a bottom-up fashion.
The engineering design and implementation of such systems from a macro planners perspective on a
relatively short time scale would prove highly challenging.
As the Kalundborg symbiosis
organization itself said, "systems make it possible people make it happen. In the development of the Kalundborg Symbiosis,
the most important element has been healthy communication and good cooperation between the participants.
The symbiosis has been founded on human relationships and fruitful collaboration
between the employees that have made the development of the symbiosis-system possible."
Finally we'll briefly touch on the more practical models and methods used within industrial ecology, as
the field has a strong anchor in engineering and includes substantial elements of environmental management.
Life cycle design and assessment is a primary model used the choice to assess the impact a system has
Over its full lifecycle and design processes based upon this analysis
Material flow accounting (MFA) is another method
Which is an analytical tool for quantifying flows and stocks of materials or substances in a well-defined system.
Typical applications of MFA include the study of material,
substances or product flows across different industrial sectors.
Environmental Input-Output Analysis is another method used in environments of accounting as a means for evaluating the linkages between
economic consumption activities and environmental impacts, including the harvest and degradation of natural resources.
As such, it is becoming an important addition to material flows accounting.
Likewise, on a social level,
stakeholder analysis is a primary tool used in the field for identifying the many parties that may have a stake within a particular project or
industry.
In this video we've been taking a brief overview to the domain of the industrial ecology, a relatively new interdisciplinary
area that takes a holistic perspective to the modelling, designing and management of coupled
ecological and industrial systems.
An approach that looks at our industrial infrastructure from the perspective of natural ecologies and biomimicry.
We talked about some of its basic principles
including the idea of Industrial metabolism,
representing the flow of materials and energy through the industrial system at different scales.
Systems thinking which recognises the need for a holistic perspective
when dealing with these complex engineered systems. We talked about synergies and how the different components
interact with each other and overall system.
recyclability and feedback loops,
converting linear systems into nonlinear cyclical processes through identifying and closing feedback loops.
Lastly we briefly looked at some of the models and tools used in this area including lifecycle analysis,
input-output analysis, material flow accounting and stakeholder analysis.