An Economic Perspective on Industrial Ecology

Edward J Manderson and Timothy J Considine

Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2018, vol. 12, issue 2, 304-323

Abstract: Industrial ecology aims to identify how the environmental performance of industrial systems can be improved. Key analytical tools of industrial ecology include material flow analysis, which tracks flows of materials from source to sink, and life cycle assessment, which quantifies the environmental impacts of a product across all stages of its life cycle. Although industrial ecology is considered to be a multidisciplinary field that includes the social sciences, economic analysis has not been fully incorporated into the industrial ecology literature and vice versa. Thus both industrial ecology and economics would likely benefit from closer collaboration. The main objectives of this article are to introduce key concepts and techniques of analysis in industrial ecology, identify important developments at the intersection of industrial ecology and economics, and to suggest areas for future collaboration and integration of the two disciplines. We argue that economists can play an important role in expanding and deepening industrial ecology and addressing the current gaps in the literature, thus improving the ability of industrial ecology to reach its full potential as a policy-supporting tool.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/reep/rey001 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:oup:renvpo:v:12:y:2018:i:2:p:304-323.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Environmental Economics and Policy is currently edited by Robert Stavins

More articles in Review of Environmental Economics and Policy from Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().