Abstract

This paper argues that industrial ecology is the activity of designing and managing human production-consumption systems, so that they interact with natural systems, to form an integrated (eco)system which has ecological integrity and provides humans with a sustainable livelihood. To accomplish this end requires an ecosystem approach, the application of systems thinking to the analysis and design of biophysical mass and energy transformation systems. In essence industrial ecology is about designing human ecological-economic systems which fit in with natural ecological systems.

The practice of industrial ecology must be carried out against the backdrop of the new understanding of complex systems, and in particular ecosystems, which is emerging. This new understanding requires that the practice of industrial ecology must address the issues of complexity, self-organization and inherent uncertainty. This requires a very different framing of design. Design becomes about developing dynamic processes rather than static structures, about setting in motion an evolutionary process. An (eco)system based approach for doing this, which has its underpinnings a Self-organizing Hierarchical Open Systems analysis of the situation is sketched out in this chapter. As suggested herein, much work remains to be done to flesh out this approach.

In the end, human socio-economic systems are utterly dependant on natural systems for their context. As McHarg put it so eloquently thirty years ago, human society must fit in with nature. Humans must understand that the integrity of human societal ecosystems are inextricably linked to the integrity of natural ecosystems. Maintaining the integrity of the biosphere is necessary for the continuation of our society. These means that we must design our physical systems so as to maintain the context for the integrity of the self-organizing processes of natural ecosystems that are necessary for the continued existence, on this planet, of self-organizing human ecosystems. This is the task that industrial ecology must accomplish, to design the intertwined ecological-societal system which is emerging on this planet.

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Kay, J., 2002, "On Complexity Theory, Exergy and Industrial Ecology: Some Implications for Construction Ecology" in Kibert, C., Sendzimir, J. (eds), Guy, B., Construction Ecology: Nature as a Basis for Green Buildings, Spon Press, pp.72-107.

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