The establishment of industrial ecosystem is the key to realize the economical sustainable development. This article analyses the related literatures of industry ecosystem, and points out the industry ecosystem's hierarchy. Then on the basis of theoretical analysis, the article proposes the building strategy of the industry ecosystem, from three aspects of the microcosmic, the intermediate and ...

Political ecology and industrial ecology have emerged as influential, but distinct, intellectual thought traditions devoted to understanding the transformation of nature-society relations and processes. Evolving from the pioneering work by physicists and environmental engineers in the late 1960s (e.g. Ayres and Kneese, 1969), industrial ecology emerged as a distinct field in the 1990s (Graedel ...

The exchange of wastes, by-products, and energy among closely situated firms is one of the distinctive features of the applications of industrial ecological principles.This at= ticle examines the industrial district at Kalundborg, Denmark, often labeled as an “industrial ecosystem” or “industrial symbiosis” because ofthe many links among the firms.The forces that led to its evolution and to the...

Industrial Symbiosis (IS) is a sub discipline of Industrial Ecology that aims to bring together companies from different sectors to share resources, namely energy, materials, water (Chertow, 2004)(Jacobsen, 2006). The main goal of IS is to improve resource efficiency and lead to environmental benefits to participants. Benefits are generated by the reduced intake of virgin materials, reduced amo...

Industrial ecology offers an original way of looking at economic activities. The approach is based on an analogy between certain objects studied by the science of ecology (ecosystems, metabolisms, symbiosis, biocenosis, etc.) and industrial systems. However, this analogical relationship raises difficulties due to the various interpretations to which it is open. Although there is agreement regar...

Many have witnessed the increasing popularity of “big data” in the past couple of years. Indeed, big data has been transforming how business is done in many industries. For example, online advertisements are increasingly customized for individual consumers based on their purchase history. Big data has also instigated many new areas of investigation, mostly in fields such as computer sciences an...

By analogy with natural ecosystems, an industrial ecology system, in addition to minimizing waste production in processes, would maximize the economical use of waste materials and of products at the ends of their lives as inputs to other processes and industries. This possibility can be made real only if a number of potential problems can be solved. These include the design of wastes along with...

Drawing on current international industrial ecology thinking and experiences with Australian initiatives, this article critically overviews the current status of industrial ecology in Australia and examines the barriers and potential strategies to realise greater uptake and application of the concept. The analysis is conducted across three categories: heavy industrial areas (including Kwinana a...