Application of an industrial ecology toolbox for the introduction of industrial ecology in enterprises—II

Abstract

The concept of an Industrial Ecology (IE) toolbox has been introduced in order to compare strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to the introduction of IE in enterprises and to assist enterprises in the planning and evaluation of IE activities for their operations and products. This paper explores the applicability of the IE toolbox for the selection of the most appropriate IE tools for a particular enterprise. This starts with a discussion of the applicability of the tools for product, process or production chain oriented IE projects. Next, guidelines are proposed to match the selection of IE tools with the expected opportunities and constraints for IE for particular types of enterprises. This starts with the characterisation of the nature of productive operations and of the in-house product development capacities of a particular enterprise in order to select one of the three main approaches to IE considered most promising for the respective enterprise (namely, ‘product’, ‘process’ or ‘production chain’ oriented). Next the environmental objectives and policies of the respective enterprise are assessed in order to select a level ‘comprehensiveness’ for the IE project (to be designated ‘orientation’, ‘investigation’ or ‘integration’). The paper concludes with a comparative analysis of the development stage of the different functional types of IE tools.