PDF - Industrial Ecology: An Environmental Agenda for Industry

Industrial
Ecology
An Environmental
Agenda for
Industry
Hardin Tibbs
G L O B A L
B U S I N E S S
N E T W O R K

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Industrial
Ecology
An Environmental
Agenda for
Industry
Hardin Tibbs
G L O B A L
B U S I N E S S
N E T W O R K
Industrial Ecology
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Foreword
This paper focuses on industrial ecology, a subject just emerging as a distinct discipline.
Although still in its early stages, it shows promise as an effective framework for ad-
dressing and integrating the very wide range of environmental issues facing both
business and government today. While the practical implementation of this thinking
lies some way in the future, the overview presented here should be of considerable
interest to all those with a professional involvement in environmental management
and environmental policy-making.
The author of this paper, Hardin Tibbs, is a senior staff member of Global Business
Network.
The Cover
The cover image shows a Mobius strip, formed by making a loop with a single twist in
it. Its special property is that it has only one surface—a line drawn along it will ulti-
mately return to its starting point, having travelled the full length of both “sides” of the
paper.
Printed on recycled paper.
Copyright © 1993, Hardin B. C. Tibbs. All rights reserved.
An earlier version of this paper was published by Arthur D. Little, Inc. in 1991.
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Industrial Ecology:
An Environmental Agenda for Industry
Managing for the Global Environment—a Complex Challenge
Operating on a global scale brings problems at a global level. The environmental issues
Industrial ecology involves
now facing industry are no longer focused simply on local toxic impacts—although
designing industrial
these remain potentially serious. There are now unintended effects on the total global
infrastructures as if they
environment, of which global warming and ozone depletion may be only the most
were a series of
visible of a multitude of adverse symptoms.
interlocking ecosystems.
The emerging environmental challenge requires a technical and management approach
capable of addressing problems of global scope. By contrast, the environmental agenda
of companies today is frequently driven by a list of individual issues because there is no
accepted overall framework to shape comprehensive programs.
Corporate environmental agendas typically list goals such as eliminating the use of
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), promoting recycling, increasing energy efficiency, and
minimizing the production of hazardous waste. The question is whether this kind of
action list goes far enough in dealing with underlying causes, or whether it is largely
treating symptoms. Will it protect business against further “environmental surprises?”
In its complexity, the global environmental problem-set somewhat resembles an
iceberg—well-publicized environmental problems are the visible one-tenth above the
surface. We still know too little about the adaptive capacity of the natural environment
as a whole to predict confidently how it will react to continuing industrialization. If the
iceberg suddenly rolls over, it could expose problems that the average business is quite
unprepared for.
Effective defense against this uncertainty will be based on the recognition of a key
principle. The ultimate driver of the global environmental crisis is industrialization,
which means significant, systemic industrial change will be unavoidable if society is to
eliminate the root causes of environmental damage. The resulting program of business
change will have to be based in a far-sighted conceptual framework if it is to ensure the
long-term viability of industrialization, and implementation will need to begin soon.
The aim of this paper is to introduce and discuss the concept of industrial ecology as the
best available candidate for this needed conceptual framework. In essence, industrial
ecology involves designing industrial infrastructures as if they were a series of inter-
locking man-made ecosystems interfacing with the natural global ecosystem. Industrial
ecology takes the pattern of the natural environment as a model for solving environ-
mental problems, creating a new paradigm for the industrial system in the process. This
is “biomimetic” design on the largest scale, and represents a decisive reorientation from
conquering nature—which we have effectively already done—to cooperating with it.
The time is right for the adoption of such an approach. Environmental concern is no
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longer a fringe preoccupation, but now enjoys broad social recognition and popular
support. Government environmental legislation is becoming increasingly stringent, and
the media frequently act as environmental proponents in reporting environmental
damage. As a result, major companies are beginning to react with what has been called
“corporate environmentalism.” And this, in turn, is creating the need for a means of
orienting strategy, management, and technology in an emerging world of environmen-
tally-aware business practice.
A Conceptual Model for Systemic Change
The move to worldwide
The problem of localized environmental impacts has been well understood for many
industrialization means that
years, and industry and regulatory authorities have evolved procedures for minimizing
current patterns of
classic environmental problems such as local emission of toxic pollutants. But the scale
of industrial production is now so great that even normally nontoxic emissions, like
industrial production are all
carbon dioxide, have become a serious threat to the global ecosystem. Seen in its
but obsolete.
broadest terms, the problem for our industrial system is that it is steadily growing larger
in comparison with the natural environment, so that its outputs are reaching levels
that are damaging because of their sheer volume, regardless of whether they are
traditional pollutants or not. The relative scale of the industrial system is remarkable:
the industrial flows of nitrogen and sulfur are equivalent to or greater than the natural
flows, and for metals such as lead, cadmium, zinc, arsenic, mercury, nickel, and vana-
dium, the industrial flows are as much as twice the natural flows—and in the case of
lead, 18 times greater.1 The natural environment is a brilliantly ingenious and adaptive
system, but there are undoubtedly limits to its ability to absorb vastly increased flows of
even naturally abundant chemicals and remain the friendly place we call home.
The scale of industrial production worldwide seems set for inexorable growth. All
countries clearly aim to achieve the levels of material prosperity enjoyed in the West,
and they intend to do it by industrializing. Since their wish represents market growth
to western companies, and is directly in line with current democratic and economic
rhetoric, it seems politically inevitable. Indeed, leaving aside environmental concerns,
simple equity argues that it is also morally unavoidable. We are witnessing the evolu-
tion of a fully industrialized world, with global industrial production, global markets,
global telecommunications highways, and global prosperity. This prospect brings the
realization that current patterns of industrial production will not be adequate to sustain
environmentally safe growth on such a scale and are therefore all but obsolete.
The challenge stems from the fact that we are constructing an artificial global system
within a preexisting natural one. It is easy to forget that the industrial system as a
whole, as it is now structured, depends on a healthy natural global ecosystem for its
functioning. While the industrial system was small, we regarded the natural global
ecosystem as limitlessly vast. As a result we treated the functioning of the natural
system as irrelevant to our industrial operations. But the continuing expansion of the
worldwide industrial system will oblige us to reconsider this view.
The solution will be an approach that allows the two systems to coexist without
threatening each other’s viability. Nature is the undisputed master of complex systems,
and in our design of a global industrial system we could learn much from the way the
natural global ecosystem functions. In doing so, we could not only improve the effi-
ciency of industry but also find more acceptable ways of interfacing it with nature.
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Figure 1:
Economic value
generation and the
Linear flow
underlying pattern of
pattern of
materials flow
existing
industrial
system
$
Market
domain
Future industrial
system based on
ecological principles
(cyclic flow system
$
with fully internalized
environmental costs)
Indeed, the most effective way of doing this is probably to model the systemic design of
industry on the systemic design of the natural system. This insight is at the heart of the
closely related concepts of industrial ecology, industrial ecosystems, industrial metabo-
lism, and industrial symbiosis, all of which have been emerging in recent years. The
question facing industry is to understand how this thinking might function in practice,
and what implementation would involve.
There are many
At the moment, the industrial “system” is less a system than a collection of linear
characteristic features
flows—drawing materials and fossil energy from nature, processing them for economic
of the natural global
value, and dumping the residue back into nature (see Figure 1). This “extract and
ecosystem that could
dump” pattern is at the root of our current environmental difficulties. The natural
usefully be emulated
environment works very differently. From its early non-cyclic origins, it has evolved
into a truly cyclic system, endlessly circulating and transforming materials, and manag-
by industry.
ing to run almost entirely on ambient solar energy. There is no reason why the interna-
tional economy could not be reframed along these lines as a continuous cyclic flow of
materials requiring a significantly lower level of energy input, and a vastly lower level
of raw materials input from, and waste output to, the natural environment. Such a
“cyclic economy” would not be limited in terms of the economic activity and growth it
could generate, but it would be limited in terms of the input of new materials and
energy it required.
There are many characteristic features of the natural global ecosystem that could
usefully be emulated by industry:
• In the natural system there is no such thing as “waste” in the sense of something that
cannot be absorbed constructively somewhere else in the system. (An example: carbon
dioxide exhaled by animals is absorbed by plants as a “feedstock” for photosynthesis.)
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• Life-giving nutrients for one species are derived from the death and decay of another.
(Bacteria and fungi in soil break down animal and plant wastes for use by growing
plants.)
• Concentrated toxins are not stored or transported in bulk at the system level, but are
synthesized and used as needed only by the individuals of a species. (Snake venom is
produced in glands immediately behind the snake’s teeth.)
• Materials and energy are continually circulated and transformed in extremely
elegant ways. The system runs entirely on ambient solar energy, and over time has
actually managed to store energy in the form of fossil fuel. (The cycling of nitrogen
The challenge now is to
from the atmosphere into protein and back again to the atmosphere is accomplished by
engineer industrial
an intricate chain of bacterial, plant and animal metabolism.)
infrastructures that
• The natural system is dynamic and information-driven, and the identity of ecosystem
are good ecological citizens,
players is defined in process terms. (The metabolic and instinctive activity of species is
so that the international
coded in their DNA and shapes much behavior in ecosystems, which can be viewed as
demand for
systems for transforming chemicals and energy.)
industrialization can be
• The system permits independent activity on the part of each individual of a species,
met.
yet cooperatively meshes the activity patterns of all species. Cooperation and competi-
tion are interlinked, held in balance. (The behavior of species in ecosystems is modified
in an interactively choreographed flow of responses to the availability of food, varia-
tions in seasonal climate, the immigration of new species, etc. Competition for food
resources is often minimized by “timesharing” or niche adaptation.)
The aim of industrial ecology is to interpret and adapt an understanding of the natural
system and apply it to the design of the man-made system, in order to achieve a
pattern of industrialization that is not only more efficient, but which is intrinsically
adjusted to the tolerances and characteristics of the natural system. The emphasis is on
forms of technology that work with natural systems, not against them. An industrial
system of this type will have built-in insurance against environmental surprises,
because their underlying causes will have been eliminated at the design stage.
Our industrial system ultimately depends on the natural ecosystem because it is
embedded within it. Our challenge now is to engineer industrial infrastructures that
are good ecological citizens so that the scale of industrial activity can continue to
increase to meet international demand without running into environmental con-
straints, or, put another way, without resulting in a net negative impact on the quality
of life.
The Business Context—“Corporate Environmentalism”
The backdrop to industrial ecology is a history of environmental debate spanning two
decades or more. Basic environmental awareness was established by the late 1960s,
following publication of books such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring,2 and began to
attract serious academic attention in the 1970s. The application of computer modelling
to environmental issues resulted in the Limits to Growth3 study for the Club of Rome,
and the Global 2000 Report4 to President Carter, which it inspired in the early 1980s. The
essential conclusions of these reports were that unchecked industrial growth would
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inevitably lead to significant worldwide environmental degradation, and that serious
consideration must therefore be given to curtailing industrial growth.
This point of view was not without its critics: the most vocal and cogent of these was
probably Herman Kahn, who, in his book The Resourceful Earth,5 coauthored with Julian
Simon, refuted the idea that the earth is as fragile environmentally or as limited in
resources as the earlier analyses had assumed. The need for some environmental
caution was accepted, but it was argued that the level of public concern was already at
a level fully adequate to ensure a corrective business response. Indeed, it was argued,
any extra governmental action on the environment—in the form of added regulatory
burden—ran the risk of weakening the long-term health of the economy and detract-
An effective environmental
ing more from future wealth and quality of life than would the postulated environ-
mental deterioration.
agenda will be one that
industry can align with
Elements from both poles of the argument appear to be converging into a commitment
easily.
to action. Industry increasingly accepts the environmental imperative, and has many
programs in place to repair the environmental mistakes of the past. Environmental
regulations have proliferated to become a mature and formidable body of legislation.
The prospect of radical energy efficiency through new technologies has demonstrated
that further economic growth may indeed be compatible with environmental stability.
At the same time, as is made clear in the recently published book Beyond the Limits,6
written by the original Limits to Growth authors, current levels of industrial throughput
are now seriously eating into the environment’s ability to replenish natural biological
stocks and neutralize pollution. And there is generally acknowledged evidence of
serious systemic environmental damage, which only threatens to get worse. In other
words, there actually is an environmental problem, and there is general agreement that
something needs to be done about it. The difficulty is that environmental debate so far
has been focused on making a case for environmentalism, or arguing against it, and has
not provided industry with a clear agenda for positive environmental response.
An effective environmental agenda will be one that industry can align with easily. In
contemplating significant change, business needs to be able to find common ground
with the program of action being proposed. Business, in keeping with its entrepreneur-
ial roots, is essentially optimistic and forward looking, with a preference for action and
a willingness to accept measured risk. It has a bias toward innovation, and a desire for
independence and leadership. It also prefers an objective that can be clearly interpreted
in management and technical terms, and is compatible with business activity. The ideal
agenda should allow progress to be measured, enhance business performance, and be
applicable in any industry, permitting alliances and cooperation among corporations
and between industries.
Most existing environmental analysis and commentary has not been framed to incor-
porate these attitudes, but the intent of industrial ecology is to create a common cause
between industry and environmentalism. Philosophically, it is based on a set of implicit
assertions:
• With appropriate design, industrial activities can be brought into balance with
nature, and industrial growth with low environmental impact is possible. As a result,
we have the ability to make industrial development sustainable in the long term, but to
do so we must actively apply the appropriate policies and technologies.
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Figure 2:
Industrial ecology
permits an integrated
managerial and
Industrial
technological
Ecology
interpretation
Business
Technical
Application
Opportunity
Strategy
Analytical Tools
Technology
Data Inputs
Applications
Strategic options;
Beyond life cycle
Ecosystem status;
Dematerialization;
Policy
analysis
Industrial
Industrial
regularities
metabolism;
Energy systems
• Technology itself is simply an expression of fundamental human curiosity and
ingenuity. It is no more intrinsically “unnatural” than human beings themselves and
would merely be reinvented if we tried to get rid of it. This view affirms both technol-
ogy and innovation, but introduces the idea that technology can be designed for
improved social and environmental yield, since it is shaped by human decisions.
Industrial ecology implicitly
• Today’s problems are so complex they can only be solved by the creation of future
asserts that industrial
newness—there is no “way back” to a supposedly better earlier time. For instance, if
development can be made
we chose to stop all use of nuclear power, the simple need to keep existing radioactive
waste safe would require that we retain nuclear know-how indefinitely into the future.
sustainable by decoupling
environmental impact from
The realization that environmental objectives can be compatible with continued
economic growth.
technological development and wealth creation is a key element in the continuing
evolution of business attitudes toward environmental issues. It comes as companies
have been progressively moving from a minimal posture focused on cleaning up past
mistakes to a much more active role that seeks to avoid future environmental errors.
Initially, business had a hard time taking environmentalism seriously, and saw the
philosophy underpinning it as passive, regressive, anti-growth, and anti-technology—
an attitude that made genuine action on environmental issues almost impossible. In
the terminology of strategic planning, the resulting posture was purely reactive. Any
environmental action taken was largely in response to the pressure of legislation or
public opinion. In its narrowly-defined desire to defend the status quo and to remain
profitable, the company of yesterday restricted itself to the minimum effort necessary
to ensure compliance and end-of-pipeline cleanup. This posture was intrinsically
vulnerable to unanticipated risks and unforeseen costs, and suffered from an inability
to acknowledge new business opportunities being created by environmental concern.
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Figure 3:
The principal elements
of industrial ecology
Industrial Ecosystems
Industrial Metabolism
Dematerialization
Biosphere Interface
Energy Systems
Policy Innovation
The emerging “green corporation,” on the other hand, accepts the environmental
imperative and willingly assumes the mantle of environmental leadership. It adopts a
truly “proactive” strategic posture, favoring voluntary product and process redesign, as
well as the avoidance of pollution and waste, and welcoming cooperation and alliances
with other organizations. In short, it takes the long-term view and addresses environ-
mental issues by attacking their root causes. This new outlook has been aptly termed
The emerging “green
“corporate environmentalism,” and is founded on the recognition that environmental-
ism can be compatible with good business and is essential for business survival.
corporation” willingly
assumes the mantle of
Industrial ecology gives structure and consistency to emerging corporate environmental
environmental leadership.
conviction. As a framework for environmental strategy, industrial ecology is uniquely
able to provide the coordinating vision for effective management planning and techni-
cal implementation in tomorrow’s green corporation. It may even evolve into an
intellectual platform that will frame public environmental debate. Industrial ecology
promises to give industry the power to anticipate risk and opportunity, to provide real
environmental leadership, and to engineer lasting solutions to issues of pressing social
concern.
Industrial Ecology in Detail
Applied industrial ecology is an integrated management and technical program (see
Figure 2). On the management side, it offers tools for analysis of the interface between
industry and the environment, and provides a basis for developing strategic options and
policy decisions. The analytical tools go beyond existing Life Cycle Analysis (LCA)
methods, to the detailed mapping of existing industrial ecosystems and the patterns of
industrial metabolism within industrial processes. These new methods are described in
the sections that follow.
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