12
conference was on probation during those years. Since that time, the value of a relatively small week-long meeting with invited speakers has become widely appreciated. The GRC/IE now routinely “sells out” at about 140–150 attendees, however,
and has been held in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Italy as well as in the
United States.
The IEEE and AT&T meetings gradually became less central to the fi eld as the
Gordon Research Conference on Industrial Ecology began and as the International
Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE) began its own biennial conferences; the fi rst
was held in the Netherlands in 2001. Regional ISIE conferences are now held as
well, and the industrial ecology fi eld has reached the point where colleagues from
around the world meet each other at regular intervals on one continent or another
around the world.
4.2 Scholarly Journals
A key attribute of a scholarly specialty is the professional journals in which the
research of the fi eld is published. In industrial ecology, the most widely known of
these is the Journal of Industrial Ecology ( JIE ), whose fi rst issue was published in
1997, predating the formation of ISIE by several years.
The genesis of the JIE was a meeting of international leaders in the emerging
fi eld in 1995. Convened by the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies in
collaboration with programs at MIT and UCLA and with funding from the AT&T
Foundation, the meeting participants expressed substantial support for a peerreviewed journal. MIT Press was chosen as the publisher and Yale University agreed
to own the journal. The JIE aimed to reach both academics and professionals and
helped link the North American industrial ecology community to researchers in
Europe and Japan that were active in cleaner production and life-cycle assessment
and to other researchers working in material fl ow analysis.
The JIE evolved as the market for academic journals changed. What began as a
print-only quarterly journal progressed by adding electronic publication; supporting
information on the Web, online early release of articles, article-level open access,
and expansion of content, the last by transitioning to bimonthly publication (2008)
and by increasing the size of the printed page (2012). In 2015 the journal shifted on
online-only. Translations of abstracts of all journal articles into Chinese began in
2001 with support of the Henry Luce Foundation. The JIE changed publishers to
Wiley–Blackwell in 2008.
Edited by Reid Lifset since its inception, it has published path-breaking issues on
bio-based products largely before biofuels, and bio-based products became the
intense focus of LCA and GHG emissions research, on e-commerce, bringing rigor
to the discussion of whether bits replacing atoms has a desirable environment
impact, and nanotechnology, drawing attention to the environmental impacts of
nano-manufacturing which had been ignored in many parts of the world.
T.E. Graedel and R.J. Lifset
conference was on probation during those years. Since that time, the value of a relatively small week-long meeting with invited speakers has become widely appreciated. The GRC/IE now routinely “sells out” at about 140–150 attendees, however,
and has been held in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Italy as well as in the
United States.
The IEEE and AT&T meetings gradually became less central to the fi eld as the
Gordon Research Conference on Industrial Ecology began and as the International
Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE) began its own biennial conferences; the fi rst
was held in the Netherlands in 2001. Regional ISIE conferences are now held as
well, and the industrial ecology fi eld has reached the point where colleagues from
around the world meet each other at regular intervals on one continent or another
around the world.
4.2 Scholarly Journals
A key attribute of a scholarly specialty is the professional journals in which the
research of the fi eld is published. In industrial ecology, the most widely known of
these is the Journal of Industrial Ecology ( JIE ), whose fi rst issue was published in
1997, predating the formation of ISIE by several years.
The genesis of the JIE was a meeting of international leaders in the emerging
fi eld in 1995. Convened by the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies in
collaboration with programs at MIT and UCLA and with funding from the AT&T
Foundation, the meeting participants expressed substantial support for a peerreviewed journal. MIT Press was chosen as the publisher and Yale University agreed
to own the journal. The JIE aimed to reach both academics and professionals and
helped link the North American industrial ecology community to researchers in
Europe and Japan that were active in cleaner production and life-cycle assessment
and to other researchers working in material fl ow analysis.
The JIE evolved as the market for academic journals changed. What began as a
print-only quarterly journal progressed by adding electronic publication; supporting
information on the Web, online early release of articles, article-level open access,
and expansion of content, the last by transitioning to bimonthly publication (2008)
and by increasing the size of the printed page (2012). In 2015 the journal shifted on
online-only. Translations of abstracts of all journal articles into Chinese began in
2001 with support of the Henry Luce Foundation. The JIE changed publishers to
Wiley–Blackwell in 2008.
Edited by Reid Lifset since its inception, it has published path-breaking issues on
bio-based products largely before biofuels, and bio-based products became the
intense focus of LCA and GHG emissions research, on e-commerce, bringing rigor
to the discussion of whether bits replacing atoms has a desirable environment
impact, and nanotechnology, drawing attention to the environmental impacts of
nano-manufacturing which had been ignored in many parts of the world.
T.E. Graedel and R.J. Lifset