Industrial symbiosis (IS) is a subdiscipline of Industrial Ecology that aims to bring together companies from different sectors to share resources, namely energy, materials, and water. The main goal of IS is to improve resource (materials, waste, energy) efficiency and lead to mutual environmental, financial and social benefits to participants. In this paper we present a semantic approach for I...

Identifying the most relevant environment related indicators and how to make them available to decision-makers are current issues. Some seek to enhance their efficiency by means of methods such as aggregations or weighting. More fundamentally, in this chapter we question how industrial ecologists appropriate the notion of environment. On the basis of multidisciplinary research, we argue that, i...

As an industrial economic organization with specific characteristics, industrial cluster is emerging with strong dynamism in global competition and driving the development of regional economy. However, industrial cluster can bring some negative impact on regional economy development. This paper tries to illustrate the reasons for the stagnation and degradation of resource-based regional industr...

In the early 1970s Ehrlich and Holdren devised a simple equation in dialogue with Commoner identifying three factors that created environmental impact. Thus, impact (I) was expressed as the product of (1) population, (P); (2) affluence, (A); and (3) technology, (T). This article tracks the various forms the IPAT equation has taken over 30 years as a means of examining an underlying shift among ...

East Asia is the manufacturing belt, garden, and kitchen of the world. It is also the woodlot and toilet. Many of the natural resources and materials that are required as inputs into the production of export commodities are extracted at low prices from the developing countries of the region. At the same time the region’s oceans, soils, and atmosphere are drains and dumps for waste and pollution.

Abstract: An ecologically industrial system is such an industrial system in harmony with its environment, especially the natural environment. The main purpose of this paper is to show how to establish a mathematical model for such systems by combinatorics, and find its topological characteristics, which are useful in industrial ecology and the environment protection.

Within recent years, various concepts have arisen in environmental management that directly address the flow of material (and information) along life cycles or supply chains and thereby relate to inter-organizational management aspects. These include industrial ecology (IE), life-cycle management, closed-loop supply chains, integrated chain management and green/environmental or sustainable supp...