Implementation Of Industrial Ecology Research Articles

Analyzing and Evaluating Industrial Ecology Development Model in Iran Using FAHP-DPSIR

Today, attention to the issue of industrial ecology in the world has become very high and significant, but in Iran this attention does not exist and is only a slogan and preliminary studies. The purpose of this study is to investigate these conditions and provide a structure and model for the implementation of industrial ecology in Iran. Industrial estates are one of the major centers of producing energy and industrial waste in the country. Developing Industrial Ecology (IE) faces significant obstacles. This study evaluates the barriers due to a combination model, including the DPSIR and Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP). It prioritizes the responses and alternatives regarding the driving forces, pressures, states, and impacts (criteria). In this study, different responses for IE development in Iran were evaluated and prioritized based on different indicators classified based on DPSIR and FAHP techniques and models. The results suggest prioritizing future IE development in Iran based on current infrastructure and conditions. To compare the analysis of two fuzzy numbers, a new division method based on a comparative example is used; to confirm the proposed method, a comparative example is described and presented. According to the field studies and research background of the research, the number of "18 criteria" and "four responses" were suggested. Finally, improving IE legal is the first step of modifying the industries clustering system, establishing IE national database and industries training. According to the identified priorities, practical suggestions for the development of Iran's industrial environmental model within the framework of legal requirements, infrastructure and regulations that should be developed or updated, were presented and the duties of relevant legal agencies were identified and proposed.

Relationship between Industrialization, Urbanization and Industrial Ecology in Western China: A Panel Vector Auto-Regression Model Analysis

As the foundation of modern economic development, industry is the engine of industrialized and urbanized development. Industrial ecology is a high-level form of industry that is achieved after it has reached a certain stage, which guides the coordinated industrial development balancing mankind and nature. The implementation of industrial ecology is an important method and effective approach to realize the sustainable development of industrialization and urbanization. In this article, based on the inter-provincial panel data of western China during 2003-2018, the spatial development trends of industrialization, urbanization and industrial ecology are analyzed, and an empirical method is employed to conduct a robustness test based on the Panel Vector Auto-Regression (PVAR) model to determine the long-term interactions among these three aspects. The results show that it is difficult to manifest the short-term causal relationships among industrialization, urbanization and industrial ecology. After lagging for three periods, they present the Granger causality, the industrial ecology and industrialization have promoted urbanization, and the coefficient for the influence of industrial ecology on urbanization is 0.4612. However, industrialization and urbanization have negative impacts on industrial ecology, and with a 1% increase in industrialization or urbanization, the industrial ecology will decline by 0.2261% or 0.2850%, respectively. With the continuation of the lagging period, industrial ecology will have better interpretability than industrialization and urbanization, and industrialization and eco-friendly development have strong self-accumulation development mechanisms, while the self-accumulation mechanism of urbanization is not obvious, and it might even have a decline. By fulfilling the role of the regional leading industry, the state of unbalanced internal development can be improved, so as to realize mutual promotion between industrialization and urbanization. By improving the utilization rates of resources and energy, efforts should be made to implement green production, significantly promote industrial ecology, and boost high-quality development of both the regional economy and society.

Territorial embeddedness of natural resource management: A perspective through the implementation of Industrial Ecology

We address the territorial embeddedness of resource management: the way in which resource management is shaped by the territorial context in which it occurs, as well as the way in which resource management contributes to shape new territories. We demonstrate that Industrial Ecology (IE), as a specific resource management approach, can be used to gain new perspectives on territorial patterns emerging with resource optimization. First, we lay down a theoretical framework that should underlie the use of territory as a concept, building bridges between geography and IE. Then, drawing upon this theoretical framework, we develop a methodological structure that can lead to and manifest the process of territorial construction at work in IE. We test the knowledge production capacity of this theoretical and methodological approach to territory in IE by applying it to a specific case study in the Aix-Marseille Provence metropolitan area (France). This paper thus enhances knowledge about the territorialization process at work in IE, by identifying different IE territories within the same geographic area and positioning local stakeholders, understood as local inhabitants, with respect to territorial interfaces. Finally, we discuss how IE, as a specific resource management approach, questions the different aspects of the connection between people and geographical places in a natural management context.

“Wealth from metal waste”: Translating global knowledge on industrial ecology to metals recycling in Australia

Australia’s rich stocks of mineral resources have been the source of national wealth and competitive advantage in the past. However, the security of this wealth is not guaranteed into the future, and what were once considered waste materials from mining, infrastructure and products are now becoming accessible and valuable as ‘above-ground’ mineral resources. Globally there is growing capacity and innovation in recycling, closed-loop supply chains and Australia’s role as a global leader in primary production must anticipate and adapt to the implications of a rise in the importance of recycling. However, both at a global level and in Australia, there are a broad range of factors and local influences affecting the successful application and implementation of industrial ecology beyond technical re-use solutions. This paper presents the initial outcomes from a major collaborative research project (Wealth from Waste Cluster), funded by the CSIRO Flagship Collaboration Fund and partner universities, focused on identifying viable options to ‘mine’ metals contained in discarded urban infrastructure, manufactured products and consumer goods. This paper presents initial estimates of the mass and current worth of metals in end-of-life products. Results from this analysis have identified that the value of metals in end-of-life products is more than AUD6 billion per year, and assuming existing recovery rates, the estimated potential for recovering metals from “waste” or end-of-life products is of the order of AUD2 billion per year. In addition a metal flow analysis of the Australian economy identified that approximately half the scrap metal collected in Australia (approximately 2.5 million tonnes per year) is currently being transported overseas which potentially could be recycled in Australia if suitable technology were available.

Two Paths to Industrial Ecology: Applying the Product-based and Geographical Approaches

The development of the practical side of the concept of industrial ecology has taken two different but interrelated paths during the last two decades: the product-based systems perspective; and the geographically defined local-regional industrial ecosystem approach. Both approaches focus on material and energy flows aiming at reducing the industrial system's virgin resource use and waste and emission outputs. The ideal has arisen to mimic the model of a sustainable natural ecosystem, which relies solely on solar energy as the input and creates cyclical flows of materials (and related energy cascades) between organisms and in the food chain. It is argued in the industrial ecology literature that wastes, as defined in human industrial system terms, are non-existent in the natural recycling system. In this paper, an application of the product-based systems approach is given with paper life cycles and a basic life cycle inventory model. An application to the regional approach is presented in the regional energy supply system of the city of Jyväskylä in Finland. The paper aims at discussing the two approaches in industrial ecology and considers their contradictory characteristics as well as their similarities. When the basic vision and the overriding goal is the local industrial ecosystem, the product-based approach can serve as an inventory tool to support the project. In this situation, the two approaches would seem to be each other's complement. When the two approaches are adopted as each other's substitute, they may support conflicting decisions for environmental policy and management. This may create difficulties in the implementation of industrial ecology. On the basis of both of the approaches to industrial ecology, the external environment of an organization is considered to comprise the societal material and energy flow environment and the natural material and energy flow environment .

Two aspects of consumption: using an exergy-based measure of degradation to advance the theory and implementation of industrial ecology

Abstract The theory of industrial ecology (IE) and the implementation of IE strategies are both hindered by inadequate definitions of consumption and recycling. In this paper, we introduce a definition of consumption that separates the consumptive process into two independent, quantifiable phenomena: throughput and degradation. We propose that exergy removal be used to provide a non-resource specific measure of material degradation. We also introduce an exergy-based definition of material cycling — cycling of material exergy (CME) — and describe how it quantifies the differences among three distinct categories of material re-use: upgrading, recirculation, and cascading. Finally, we use a simple, quantitative example involving three methanol-water waste streams to demonstrate exergy-based measures of consumption and material cycling.