Abstract
The declining availability of natural resources and the environmental impacts of continued extraction of primary resources for production activities have forced greater focus on waste streams and recycling activities. Industrial ecology as a field of practice and theory has been closely related to sustainability issues, yet despite the development of much theory and specific tools and methodologies, the link between natural, industrial and economic systems is not convincing. Not only that, the need for delivering sustainable production and consumption practices is increasing, which is demanding new solutions to existing problems, particularly around the degree of novelty. The interaction of industrial ecology with business studies and industrial investment decision-making remains under-developed, and this is likely impacting on the adoption of more sustainable and resource-efficient practices. As such, this paper uses a constructive approach and explores how two areas of the literature can support the development of the industrial ecology field into strategic business practice: firstly, the innovation literature, particularly the emerging work on open innovation and sustainable innovation as a model to understand radical innovation processes and the creation and maintenance of networked systems of firms; secondly, the closely related area of business model (BM) innovation, specifically the emerging typologies of sustainable BMs and how these typologies can be developed and used as a route to positioning recycling activities at the strategic management level of the firm.
Highlights
The recognition that we live in a world with limited resources is driving activities towards increased sustainability
Industrial ecology is a field of practice and theory that has devoted significant attention to understanding the materials and energy flows of our production and consumption systems, with a special focus on understanding the impacts of our industrial system on the environment, our stocks of resources and the losses associated with waste and disposal [1,2,3]
This paper develops a constructive approach to the problem of the need to increase product-centric recycling, by analysing the theoretical and conceptual basis of two areas of both relevant, but novel, in an effort to develop a solution to this problem
Summary
The recognition that we live in a world with limited resources is driving activities towards increased sustainability. The interaction of industrial ecology with business studies and industrial investment decision-making remains under-developed [5,6,7,8], and this is likely impacting on the adoption of more sustainable and resource-efficient practices This special issue set out six themes for investigation in understanding the opportunities to derive value from recycling above-ground resources. This paper uses a constructive approach to examine how two areas of literature can be used to support the development of the industrial ecology field into strategic business practice and provides for new solutions for BMs to support resource efficient practices The first of these areas is found in the innovation literature, the emerging work on open innovation and sustainable innovation as a model to understand radical innovation processes and the creation and maintenance of networked systems of firms. The focus here is on the emerging typologies of sustainable BMs and analysing how these typologies can be developed and used as a route to positioning recycling activities at the strategic management level of the firm, with the ultimate aim of understanding how recycling activities can be increased in the industrial system
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