IEooc Background1 Lecture2
We need to understand that the biophysical and the social reality overlap and are interrelated.
Industrial ecology studies the flows of materials and energy in industrial and consumer activities, and how they impact the effects of these flows on the environment. In short, the study of social metabolism.
Industrial ecology can answer really important questions, such as what is the aggregated footprint of renewable energy provision versus existing fossil fuel energy systems, as well as in chemical engineering processes, considering also the waste byproducts and energy balances.
The difference is that industrial ecology analyzes the system and is not a process in isolation.
The difference with ecological economics is less engineering and more general principles.
Material flow analysis is the oldest field, older than industrial ecology. It can be used to extrapolate material uses and calculate GhG implications. It also allows us to understand the required extraction to keep existing stocks intact.
Input and Output analysis studies the entire system to model global resource extraction and map it to local consumption. It is used to calculate the material, water, and land footprint of consumption baskets at the country level. An example is the measurement of the carbon footprint of tourism, not from provisioning but from consumption.
Industrial symbiosis exists in multiple economic systems, where the multiple services provided by industry in relation to others are modeled.
Urban metabolism studies model city consumption but also its generation of services and innovation. An old example is the relationship observed in energy use and population density worldwide to explain why urban planning is key to explain patterns of energy use.
Here, I argue that two of the pillars: the environmental and the social ones, are more fundamental to the ultimate goals of sustainable development and should thus play a more prominent role than the economic dimension, and I suggest a modification of the three pillar model that reflects the different hierarchy of sustainability aspects/pillars.
In the introductory part of all courses that I teach, I make a reference to the systems approach to studying human-environment interactions, which sees humans embedded in a system that has two layers: a cultural (symbolic) and a biophysical (material) [6].
“All material objects and processes within society have a double role: they have a biophysical basis and are subject to social causation at the same time. […] The two-layer model of reality [Fig. 2] offers a specific framework for clarifying the relation between the physical and the social world.
he two-sphere model of biophysical and social spheres of causation. Society is seen as hybrid of the two spheres (Fischer-Kowalski and Weisz 1999) [6], and the part of the overlap of social and biophysical spheres that is under direct human control is termed ‘societies biophysical basis’, which can be further divided into structures (human bodies and in-use stocks of buildings, products, and infrastructure) and the energy and material processing to operate society’s biophysical structures to supply human demand for products and services. The economy comprises society’s biophysical basic but extends into the natural environment (via ownership of natural assets) and into the symbolic realm (via non-physical relationships such as ownership, money, and discounting).
There is probably no better framing of the notion of the economy as a double-constrained system than the doughnut image put forth by Kate Raworth. In industrial ecology and socio-metabolic research [13], we operationalise the doughnut economy framework by adding the different steps of the so-called energy service cascade [14], which is a cascade of system couplings, including the following links: services (like transport, thermal comfort) to wellbeing, functions (car driving, building heated) to services, products (cars, houses) to functions, energy and material to build products, energy and material to operate products, energy carriers and raw materials, resource extraction and energy conversion technologies, and the impact of all these activities on the environment. Central in the energy service cascade is the so-called stock-flow service nexus, which is comprised of the blue boxes ‘services/activities’, ‘functions’, ‘products/stocks’, and build-up and operational energy and material flows [15]. This nexus is an important system linkage in society’s metabolism, as it links energy and material flows to service provision for human wellbeing.
Green engineering focuses on how to achieve
sustainability through science and technology.
It is also useful to view the 12 principles as parameters in a complex and integrated system. Just as
every parameter in a system cannot be optimized at
any one time, especially when they are interdependent, the same is true of these principles. There are
cases of synergy in which the successful application
of one principle advances one or more of the others.
The 12 Principles of Green Engineering provide a
structure to create and assess the elements of design
relevant to maximizing sustainability. Engineers can
use these principles as guidelines to help ensure that
designs for products, processes, or systems have the
fundamental components, conditions, and circumstances necessary to be more sustainable.
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