Pauline Deutz

Industrial ecology and eco‐industrial development: A potential paradigm for local and regional development?

Gibbs, D., Deutz, P. and Proctor, A. (2005) Industrial ecology and eco‐industrial development: a potential paradigm for local and regional development?, Regional Studies 39 , 171–183. Increasingly, concepts such as sustainable development and ecological modernization have entered into local and regional economic policies and strategies. However, integrating environmental and economic aims has proved difficult, despite arguments that sustainability enables ‘win‐win‐win’ solutions. Eco‐industrial development is a recent policy initiative that attempts to integrate economic, social and environmental aims in a concrete form. Derived from concepts of industrial ecology, eco‐industrial developments seek to increase business competitiveness, reduce waste and pollution, create jobs, and improve working conditions. While these initiatives are said to offer a new basis for local and regional development, there has been little critical evaluation of eco‐industrial development.

Carbon emissions intensity ratio: an indicator for an improved carbon labelling scheme

This letter proposes a new carbon labelling scheme to improve the visibility of products’ life cycle carbon emissions (sometimes defined as carbon footprint). This approach starts by normalizing carbon emissions data on a common scale of ‘carbon emissions intensity’, and a new indicator ‘carbon emissions intensity ratio’ is generated based upon its ratio to the annual national greenhouse gas emission per gross domestic product. Five ranges (extremely low, low, medium, high and extremely high) are used to represent the level of carbon emissions intensity ratio by a simple diagram with colour gradation. Case examples are presented, in which the carbon emissions intensity ratios of various selected products, both distinct and related, are calculated and compared. The limitations of this approach are then discussed, laying a foundation for further work.

Editorial: Industrial Symbiosis – An Environmental Perspective on Regional Development

Industrial Ecology is a collective term for a number of business-centered systems-oriented approaches to improve the eco-efficiency of industry. Employing ecological metaphors, IE asks questions about the sustainability of the current industrial paradigm. In essence, it argues that the traditional model of industrial activity where individual manufacturing processes take in raw materials and generate products to be sold plus waste for disposal, needs to be transformed into a more integrated “closed-loop” model: an industrial ecosystem. Here raw material extraction and waste generation are minimized since waste serves as the raw material for other production processes.

Food for Thought: Seeking the Essence of Industrial Symbiosis

Researchers and practitioners would benefit from a definition of industrial symbiosis which clearly distinguishes essential from contingent characteristics. The definition also needs to be translatable between both language and policy contexts. Industrial symbiosis is herein defined as a flow of underutilized resource(s) (comprising substances and/or objects and/or energy), from an entity which would otherwise discard them, to another entity which uses them as a substitute for new resources. Choice of terms is justified by reference to academic and policy literature. This definition has an underlying assumption of resource efficiency, by contrast to other approaches which mistakenly emphasized economic benefits, which are contingent rather than essential characteristics.

Reverse logistics in household recycling and waste systems: a symbiosis perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the proposition that there is a symbiosis effect for exchanges between household waste recycling systems (HWRSs) and household recycling behaviour (HRB) within the reverse logistics (RL) discourse. Design/methodology/approach – The paper contains empirical findings from a two phase, multi-method approach comprising consecutive inductive and deductive investigations. The qualitative and quantitative data underpin exploratory and explanatory findings which broaden and deepen the understanding of this phenomenon. Findings – Analysis identified significant interactions between situational and personal factors, specifically demographic factors, affecting HRB with key factors identified as engagement, convenience, availability and accessibility. Research limitations/implications – Findings confirm the existence of a symbiosis effect between situational and personal factors and inform current research trends in the environmental sciences, behavioural and logistics literature, particularly identifying consumers as being an important pivot point between forward and RL flows. Practical implications – Findings should inform RL-HWRSs design by municipalities looking to more effectively manage MSW and enhance recycling and sustainability. RL practitioners should introduce systems to support recovery of MSW in sympathy with communication and education initiatives to affect HRB and should also appreciate a symbiosis effect in the design of HWRSs. Social implications – The social implications of improved recycling performances in municipalities are profound. Even incremental improvements in the performance of HWRSs can lead to enhanced sustainability through higher recycling rates, reduced diversion of MSW to landfill, decreases in pollution levels, reduced carbon footprints and reduction in depletion of scarce natural resources. Originality/value – The paper marks an early contribution to the study of symbiosis in HWRSs and HRB pertaining to RL. Findings are offered that identify the key situational and personal factors that interact to affect enhanced HWRSs and also offer insights above those available in current multi-disciplinary literature that has largely examined such factors in isolation. Conclusions offer the possibility of an epistemological bridge between the social and natural sciences.

Introducing an international perspective on industrial ecology

Abstract: The aim of this book is to promote a debate about the relationship between industrial ecology (IE), as a business, community and academic endeavour, and the places in the world where examples of industrial ecology can be found. We present analyses of IE demonstrating its context and variability on a global scale. After 25 years of activity, industrial ecology studies and practices can be found across the globe. The commonalities, associated constraints and opportunities, are widely discussed in the burgeoning literature. An additional commonality, seldom explored, is that these examples are all happening somewhere. The significance of location for the IE activity attempted, the outcome of that attempt, and the transferability of lessons to other locations are rarely considered. Furthermore, studies are conducted from somewhere, not necessarily the same place where the IE activities are rooted. Originally inspired by a session on IE and geography at the International Sustainable Development Research Society conference in Hong Kong in 2010, we have expanded the range of contributions to the book to provide a genuinely global reach in terms of both case studies and authorship. This book provides contextualised overviews of current state of IE in specific countries or continents; explores case studies of different types of IE, in a variety of settings (including developed and developing country) and provides comparisons between different national contexts. Authors draw on several methodological and theoretical frameworks, offering approaches to comparative work, and contributing to the theoretical understanding of the field.

Comparing industrial symbiosis in Europe: towards a conceptual framework and research methodology

Industrial symbiosis (IS) continues to raise the interest of researchers and practitioners alike. Individual and haphazard attempts to increase linkages among co-located firms have been complemented by concerted efforts to stimulate the development of industrial regions with intensified resource exchanges that reduce environmental impact. Additionally, there are examples of both spontaneous and facilitated linkages between two or more firms involving flows of materials/energy waste. A striking feature of IS activities is that they are found across diverse social contexts and vary considerably in form (Lombardi et al., 2012); there are substantial differences in the ways in which IS manifests itself. Equally diverse are the activities of policy makers to stimulate such linkages. Such diversity can already be found within Europe, as became apparent in a first meeting among some of the present authors in 2009 (Isenmann and Chernykh, 2009). Researchers present there decided to create a network of European researchers on IS, with the explicit aim to develop a comparative analysis. We can thus provide insight to the relationship between the style of IS and its context and thereby the potential for policy makers in different contexts to learn from each other. Policy learning can be a tempting route to IS, but is fraught with difficulties if the influence of context is not appreciated (e.g., Wang et al., Chapter 6, this volume).

Investigating household recycling behaviour through the interactions between personal and situational factors

In recent years household recycling behaviour (HRB) has become a focal point in social science research to understand the concept of household waste recycling management. Household recycling systems involve two main actors: households and municipalities. This paper reports on an empirical study of the interaction between HRB and household waste recycling systems provided by municipalities. A convenience sample of 412 households was selected to complete a survey on recycling initiatives with personal and situational factors and also their interaction. Results showed that personal factors have a significant relation with situational factors (availability, accessibility, awareness and convenience) (p < 0.01) and vice versa; with a positive correlation (r (412) = +0.41). In addition, personal factors correlated positively to availability, accessibility, awareness and convenience at a p-value below 0.01. Furthermore, situational factors interact with demographical factors such that personal factors may be predicted (overall HRB). This study uses both an interdisciplinary and multi-methods approach to answer its research questions and is also accessible to both practitioner and academic domains.