Closing Loops: A Workshop on Scale Issues in Implementing Industrial Ecology

9724931安德鲁斯国际委员会建议为少数高级工程师、社会和自然科学家以及从业者举办一个为期一天的工作坊，讨论实施工业生态的规模问题。该活动有三个重要目标：(1)在研究、商业和政策界之间建立更好的联系；(2)鼓励落实迄今学到的经验教训；(3)在这一年轻的、交叉的领域的一个角落确定未来的研究需求。工业生态学不仅仅是一个强有力的比喻，它提供了一种系统的方式来看待现代工业活动对环境的影响。它强调了现代经济中参与者之间密集的相互联系网络，并强调了工业在决定总体环境负担方面的突出作用。规范性愿景包括从简单、线性、一次性的工业生态系统转变为更有效的安排，重复使用大多数材料，只需很少的外部投入就能维持系统运转。这一愿景隐含着工业界的积极参与，以及旨在补充而不是取代市场力量的公共政策。在下列情况下，规模问题变得重要：(1)梳理提议的相对优点，例如生态工业园与废物交换战略；(2)经济和政治系统的边界不一致；(3)分析系统的动态--工业生态系统是如何演变的。该项目包括四项任务：编写背景文件和议程，挑选研讨会参与者，召开研讨会，并撰写结果。研究人员认为，该研讨会是实施工业生态中规模问题的长期研究项目的范围确定阶段。现在举办这次研讨会是及时的，原因有两个：以前研究的主要经验教训现在可以付诸实施，这一新兴领域的未来研究需要优先考虑。***

9724931 Andrews The PI's propose a one day workshop for a small number of senior engineers, social and natural scientists, and practitioners to discuss scale issues in implementing industrial ecology. The event has three important goals: (1) build better linkages between the research, business, and policy communities; (2) encourage implementation of lessons learned to date; and (3) scope future research needs in one comer of this young, cross- cutting field. More than just a powerful metaphor, industrial ecology offers a systematic way of looking at the environmental impacts of modern industrial activity. It emphasizes the dense web of interconnections between actors in modern economies, and it highlights the prominent role of industry determining the overall environmental burden. The normative vision includes a transformation from a simple, linear, oncethrough industrial ecosystem to a more efficient arrangement which re-uses most materials and requires few exogenous inputs to keep the system going. Implicit in this vision is active participation of industry, and public policies designed to complement rather than substitute for market forces. Scale issues become important when (1) sorting out the relative merits of proposals for example, an eco-industrial park versus a waste exchange strategy; (2) the boundaries of economic and political systems are not coincident; and (3) analyzing the system's dynamics-how an industrial ecosystem evolves. This project includes four tasks: prepare a background paper and agenda, select workshop participants, convene the workshop, and write up the results. The investigators see the workshop as the scoping phase of a longer term research project on scale issues in implementing industrial ecology. It is timely to hold this workshop for two reasons: key lessons from previous research are now ready to be implemented, and future research in this burgeoning field needs to be prioritized. ***