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Quantitative Industrial Ecology & Ecological Economics
Author(s) -
Koenig Herman E.,
Cantlon John E.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of industrial ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.377
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1530-9290
pISSN - 1088-1980
DOI - 10.1162/108819899569557
Subject(s) - industrial ecology , context (archaeology) , ecology , economics , ecological economics , scope (computer science) , ecological systems theory , systems ecology , ecological modernization , environmental resource management , applied ecology , sustainable development , computer science , sustainability , biodiversity , paleontology , biology , programming language
Summary This article presents a theoretical foundation for integrating three otherwise disparate areas of human thought and understanding: technology, ecology, and economics. The article presents the mathematical foundations for quantifying the biophysical (mass, energy, and informational) aspects of economic production systems and their interaction with natural systems. These mathematical relationships are required for the on‐going ecological and economic design of technological production networks by enterprise management, thereby extending the scope and scale of quantitative engineering design from the domain of individual technologies to networks of technologies at enterprise, corporate, and industrial levels of technological organization. The analytical framework extends the practical utility of ecology, as an applied natural science, from passive environmental monitoring and prediction to active institutional participation in an informational feedback control strategy pursuant to economically abating the ecological risks of industrial growth, development, and modernization at local, regional, and global levels of ecological organization. And it provides the applied natural‐science underpinnings and the informational feedback control institutions required to support economics as an applied social science. In this context ecological risk‐control pricing is presented as a supplement to conventional economic policies at local, regional, and national levels of economic organization.