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

PI建议举办一个为期一天的研讨会，邀请少数高级工程师、社会和自然科学家以及实践者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)鼓励实施迄今取得的经验教训；(3)在这个年轻的交叉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隐喻，它还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行为者之间紧密联系的网络，并强调了工业在决定总体环境负担方面的突出作用。规范的愿景包括从一个简单的、线性的、一次性的工业生态系统向一个更有效的安排的转变，这种安排可以重复使用大多数材料，并且需要很少的外部输入来保持系统的运行。这一愿景隐含着行业的积极参与，以及旨在补充而非替代市场力量的公共政策。规模问题在以下方面变得非常重要：(1)区分各种建议的相对优点，例如，生态工业园区与废物交换战略；(2)经济和政治制度的界限不一致；(3)系统动力学分析——产业生态系统如何演化。该项目包括四项任务：准备背景文件和议程，选择研讨会参与者，召集研讨会，并撰写结果。研究人员将研讨会视为实施工业生态的规模问题的长期研究项目的范围确定阶段。召开这次研讨会是及时的，有两个原因：从以前的研究中得到的关键教训现在已经准备好实施，未来在这个新兴领域的研究需要优先考虑。＊＊＊

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. ***