John R. Ehrenfeld

Organizing Self‐Organizing Systems

Industrial symbiosis examines cooperative management of resource flows through networks of businesses known in the literature as industrial ecosystems. These industrial ecosystems have previously been portrayed as having characteristics of complex adaptive systems, but with insufficient attention to the internal and external phenomena describing their genesis. Drawing on biological, ecological, organizational, and systems theory, a discontinuous three‐stage model of industrial symbiosis is presented. The model proceeds from a random formative stage involving numerous actors engaging in material and energy exchanges, to conscious recognition and intentional pursuit of network benefits, to institutionalization of beliefs and norms enabling successful collaborative behavior. While there is much variation, with no single path to this outcome, the recognition of benefits is seen as an emergent property characteristic of these self‐organized systems that move beyond the initial stage.

Industrial Ecology: Paradigm Shift or Normal Science?

Industrial ecology is an evolving framework for the analysis and design of public policy, corporate strategy, and technological systems and products. Its metaphorical denotation springs from conceptual models characteristic of sustainable or long-lived ecosystems. Some authors stress the material and energy flows within a system of producers and consumers and aim to build knowledge about these flows that can be used for such design purposes as above. Others see industrial ecology primarily in its more metaphorical sense as providing new normative themes for a possibly sustainable world. Such norms include connectedness, cooperation, and community. These particular norms are, more or less, contrary to prevailing elements of social structures in market-based, industrialized nations. The paradigmatic, normative potential of industrial ecology is contrasted with its potential as an emerging “science” of sustainability.

Industrial ecology: A framework for product and process design

Abstract Industrial ecology is a new system for describing and designing sustainable economies. Arising out of an ecological metaphor, it offers guidelines to designers of products and the institutional structures in which production and consumption occur, as well as frameworks for the analysis of complex material and energy flows across economies.

Eco-efficiency: Philosophy, Theory, and Tools

It is ironic that I am writing this column on the philosophy, theory, and tools of eco-efficiency, because I expressed my skepticism concerning the subject at the meeting that is the source of this special issue. The concept of eco-efficiency was first described by Schaltegger and Sturm (1989) and then widely publicized in 1992 in Changing Course (Schmidheiny 1992), a publication of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Since then it has been accepted

Organizing for effective environmental design

The ability to incorporate environmental concerns into the product development process is becoming increasingly important as diverse constituents make greater demands upon firms for improved environmental performance. Based on a review of the capabilities literature, we propose that environmental design capability derives from expertise on environmental impacts and technologies both internal and external to the firm (knowledge resources) coordinated with product development teams through dense information networks (communication linkages) embedded in a context where environmental information is understood and valued (interpretive structures). Through a series of case studies, we find support for our proposition that environmental design capabilities are related to the integration of diverse knowledge resources.

Standard or Smokescreen? Implementation of a Voluntary Environmental Code

According to classical free market doctrine, no more should be expected of a business, even a large business, than that it operate within the law, and the law should protect the autonomy and rationality of the enterprise. After all, it is argued, a firm is the very model of instrumental rationality. However, the social costs of moral indifference—distorted priorities, defrauded consumers, degraded environments, deformed babies—have created an irrepressible demand for enhanced accountability, more external regulation, and a stronger sense of social responsibility.

Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously: Is the Emergence of "Sustainable" Practices Meaningful?

The title of the presentation comes from a famous passage by Noam Chomsky (Chomsky 1957) showing that sentences that make sense syntactically or structurally may carry no meaning. So one might ask whether the emergence of green practices in firms signals a meaningful sea change or remains merely some familiar, but meaningless pattern. And further, given the spate of books and articles (for example see, (Hart 1997)) that suggest that [only] firms with sustainable strategies will be tomorrow’s winners, one should ask whether the moral or romantic exhortations that usually accompany these texts are sufficient motivators to induce a critical mass of firms to move to sustainable trajectories. Reasons to remain skeptical exist on both accounts.