The Ecology of Industry Sectors and Linkages (1998) / Chapter Skim
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Overview and Perspectives
Overview and Perspectives
Pages 1-12
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in the area of technology and the environment.3 It presents industrial perspectives on opportunities and challenges in improving environmental eff~ciencies through better design and management in five industries: mining, materials processing, manufacturing, electric utilities, and pulp and paper. The accompanying papers result from sectoral workshops on industrial best practices convened as part of a 1994 NAB International Conference on Industrial Ecology in Irvine, California.
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Hence, it is not unusual to find that the principal factor driving environmental efficiency improvements in industry has been the recognition that inefficiently run production systems result in waste generation and energy losses, which if minimized can lead to cost savings. It was sobering for some companies to realize that the cost of environmental compliance was equal to their entire research and development budget (Carberry, 1997~.
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provide an example of a mining company in Australia that developed a mine restoration plan in response to and in cooperation with local communities. Directed efforts to improve industrial environmental efficiencies would not
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, suggesting the need to understand the impact of technology on systems of production and consumption and to deal with them. Yet, the positive impact of technology in addressing specific environmental ills is evident in this volume's papers on the pulp and paper and the electric utilities industries.
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Adjunct developments in machinery for injection molding and extrusion and later innovations in packaging, construction, electrical equipment, agriculture, textiles, clothing, toys, and other applications resulted in a range of interrelated innovations that were not contemplated when the materials and chemicals were first developed. The second example is the cluster of innovations in electrically driven household consumer durables.
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reflect this new managment philosophy, which abhors the wasteful attitudes and traditions of mass production that often tolerated the production of large amounts of scrap, high reject rates, and significant loss of inventory during production. The environmental benefits of applying information technology with new management philosophies extend beyond a single plant to networks of plants, including outsourced activities.
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is often high; the incomes of many who work in service industries are often well above average (e.g., doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, and airline pilots) ; and there is substantial capital investment by service companies (e.g., transportation firms, communications firms, and national retail chains)
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Their downstream influence, however, is yet to be tapped fully. Service firms, to be successful, must be very close to their consumers, and several companies in this sector provide their consumers with environmentally relevant information (e.g., Starbucks Coffee, which provides information about its environmental practices; Home Depot, which provides "green" products next to more common brands; some hotels, which provide an environmental explanation with an offer to change hotel sheets or towels less frequently than daily)
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There is also a serious need for good data, methods, and institutional mechanisms to undertake state-of-the-art, full environmental lifecycle evaluation. Further definition and application of industrial environmental performance metrics should also aid efforts to improve environmental efficiencies.
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These include, for instance, energy consumption for transport, effluents from real estate development and redevelopment, and the capacity to select preferable packaging and product materials using life-cycle assessments. Also affected will be the ability to substitute information and control systems for energy and materials and the capacity to extend knowledge about these systems to less-developed countries before they encounter, and burden the planet with, insurmountable environmental problems.
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; industrial ecology and design for the environment (The Greening of Industrial Ecosystems, 1994) ; corporate environmental practices (Corporate Environmental Practices: Climbing the Learning Curve, 1994)
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Paper presented at the 1997 NAE Industrial Ecology Workshop, July 20-22, 1997. Woods Hole, Mass.
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