The Hawaiian Islands: Conceptualizing an Industrial Ecology Holarchic System

Marian R. Chertow, Thomas E. Graedel, Koichi S. Kanaoka and Jooyoung Park
Additional contact information
Marian R. Chertow: Center for Industrial Ecology, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
Thomas E. Graedel: Center for Industrial Ecology, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
Koichi S. Kanaoka: Center for Industrial Ecology, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
Jooyoung Park: Graduate School of Energy and Environment (KU-KIST Green School), Korea University, Seoul 02841, Korea

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 8, 1-17

Abstract: The Hawaiian Islands form a holarchic system with at least five nested layers (holons) at increasing spatial scales: from a single enterprise to cities, to individual islands, to the archipelago (the group of islands), and to the global resource base that connects them all. Each holonic layer operates individually but is also linked to holons at lower and higher levels by material input and output flows. An integrated study of the holarchic system allows us to explore the value of applying this concept to industrial ecology. We present examples from a multi-level material flow analysis combining a large quantity of material and energy flow data for Hawaii from the five holarchic levels. Our analysis demonstrates how a holarchic approach to the study of selected interacting systems can reveal features and linkages of their metabolism not otherwise apparent and can provide a novel basis for discovering material, energy, and societal connections.

Keywords: holarchy; holon; industrial ecology; material flow analysis; social metabolism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/8/3104/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/8/3104/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:8:p:3104-:d:344803

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().