Industrial Symbiosis and Eco-Industrial Development: An Introduction

In recent years, industrial ecology has been the subject of both academic and policy interest, as a means of implementing sustainable development. For some academic researchers, industrial ecology is seen as the 'science of sustainability', while for policy-makers one aspect of industrial ecology, industrial symbiosis, has seemed to offer new opportunities to combine environmental improvement, economic development and local regeneration through the construction of eco-industrial parks. Industrial symbiosis uses metaphors drawn from natural ecosystems to suggest that industrial production can be reconfigured into an 'industrial ecosystem' where firms are interconnected through the exchange of wastes and energy. This article is intended to provide an introduction to some of the key ideas involved in industrial symbiosis and to the ways in which it has been used to inform policy.