3
© The Author(s) 2016
R. Clift, A. Druckman (eds.), Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-20571-7_1
Chapter 1
Industrial Ecology’s First Decade
T. E. Graedel and R. J. Lifset
Abstract Industrial ecology can be said to have begun with a 1989 seminal publication entitled “Strategies for Manufacturing.” During the next decade, the fi eld was
initially defi ned and developed by researchers in industry and elsewhere who saw
the opportunity for improving corporate and governmental performance related to
the environment and sustainability. They introduced design for environment, industrial symbiosis, and resource use and loss assessments at national and global levels
and enhanced the embryonic specialty of life-cycle assessment. In the same decade,
industrial ecology became widely recognized as a scholarly specialty, with its own
journals and conferences. This chapter reviews industrial ecology’s emergence and
evolution, largely from a North American perspective, with emphasis on the fi eld’s
lesser-known fi rst decade.
Keywords Emerging discipline • Evolution of industrial ecology • History of
industrial ecology • International society for industrial ecology • Journal of industrial ecology
1 Origins of Industrial Ecology
The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm is
often seen as milestone in the emergence of a global environmental movement. The
declaration arising from that conference included twenty-six principles, including
several that resonate with what we now know as industrial ecology:
Principle 2: The natural resources of Earth… must be safeguarded for the benefi t of
present and future generations.
Principle 5: The nonrenewable resources of Earth must be employed in such a way
as to guard against the danger of their future exhaustion.
T. E. Graedel (*) • R. J. Lifset
Center for Industrial Ecology , Yale University , 195 Prospect St. , New Haven , CT 06511 , USA
e-mail: thomas.graedel@yale.edu
© The Author(s) 2016
R. Clift, A. Druckman (eds.), Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-20571-7_1
Chapter 1
Industrial Ecology’s First Decade
T. E. Graedel and R. J. Lifset
Abstract Industrial ecology can be said to have begun with a 1989 seminal publication entitled “Strategies for Manufacturing.” During the next decade, the fi eld was
initially defi ned and developed by researchers in industry and elsewhere who saw
the opportunity for improving corporate and governmental performance related to
the environment and sustainability. They introduced design for environment, industrial symbiosis, and resource use and loss assessments at national and global levels
and enhanced the embryonic specialty of life-cycle assessment. In the same decade,
industrial ecology became widely recognized as a scholarly specialty, with its own
journals and conferences. This chapter reviews industrial ecology’s emergence and
evolution, largely from a North American perspective, with emphasis on the fi eld’s
lesser-known fi rst decade.
Keywords Emerging discipline • Evolution of industrial ecology • History of
industrial ecology • International society for industrial ecology • Journal of industrial ecology
1 Origins of Industrial Ecology
The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm is
often seen as milestone in the emergence of a global environmental movement. The
declaration arising from that conference included twenty-six principles, including
several that resonate with what we now know as industrial ecology:
Principle 2: The natural resources of Earth… must be safeguarded for the benefi t of
present and future generations.
Principle 5: The nonrenewable resources of Earth must be employed in such a way
as to guard against the danger of their future exhaustion.
T. E. Graedel (*) • R. J. Lifset
Center for Industrial Ecology , Yale University , 195 Prospect St. , New Haven , CT 06511 , USA
e-mail: thomas.graedel@yale.edu