Sustainable development: socio‐economic metabolism and colonization of nature

Fischer‐Kowalski, Marina; Haberl, Helmut

doi:10.1111/1468-2451.00169

Cited by 105 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…In the nineteenth century, industrialists had already developed the idea of industrial metabolism, wherein industry operates not as a set of independent inputs and outputs, but as a unified larger 'organism', and waste-is-food (Simmonds, 1862), both of which would inform Circular Economy thinking. By 1930, industrial symbiosis had appeared in the literature (Fischer-Kowalski and Haberl, 1998;Parkins, 1930). The largest recent sustainable economics movement, Industrial Ecology, brought together these ideas and gathered considerable interest.…”

Section: Antecedents Of the Concept In Economics And Ecologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Circular Economy: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Concept and Application in a Global Context

Skene²,

2015

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There have long been calls from industry for guidance in implementing strategies for sustainable development. The Circular Economy represents the most recent attempt to conceptualize the integration of economic activity and environmental wellbeing in a sustainable way. This set of ideas has been adopted by China as the basis of their economic development (included in both the 11 th and the 12 th 'Five Year Plan'), escalating the concept in minds of western policymakers and NGOs. This paper traces the conceptualisations and origins of the Circular Economy, tracing its meanings and exploring its antecedents in economics and ecology, and discusses how the Circular Economy has been operationalised in business and policy. The paper finds that while the Circular Economy places emphasis on the redesign of processes and cycling of materials, which may contribute to more sustainable business models, it also encapsulates tensions and limitations. These include an absence of the social dimension inherent in sustainable development that limits its ethical dimensions, and some unintended consequences. This leads us to propose a revised definition of the Circular Economy as "an economic model wherein planning, resourcing, procurement, production and reprocessing are designed and managed, as both process and output, to maximize ecosystem functioning and human well-being".

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Section: Antecedents Of the Concept In Economics And Ecologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Circular Economy: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Concept and Application in a Global Context

Skene²,

2015

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“…Thus, maintaining the resulting landscape depended-and still depends-on human labour and technology, and the input of other resources such as fertilisers and knowledge. From a social-ecological perspective, it thus depends on continuing what we call the colonisation of nature [51].…”

Section: Social-ecological Nature Of Ecosystem Services: Challenges Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, transdisciplinary approaches are essential to identify and analyse the complex interlinkages between societal and natural processes. If we take TDR seriously, as illustrated in Figure 3, there is a need to integrate ES research more explicitly into wider frameworks or larger concepts such as SES (see [2], but also [65,69,70]) or socioeconomic metabolism [51,71]) in order to capture the intended and unintended activities from society on nature that might influence ES provisioning. This promises a better consideration of the social-ecological dynamics of ecosystem services, namely the functional relation between ES supply and demand influencing each other [2].…”

Section: Rethinking Ecosystem Services Research: Implications and Reqmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosystem Services as a Boundary Concept: Arguments from Social Ecology

et al. 2017

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Ecosystem services (ES) are defined as the interdependencies between society and nature. Despite several years of conceptual discussions, some challenges of the ES concept are far from being resolved. In particular, the usefulness of the concept for nature protection is questioned, and a strong critique is expressed concerning its contribution towards the neoliberal commodification of nature. This paper argues that these challenges can be addressed by dealing more carefully with ES as a boundary concept between different disciplines and between science and society. ES are neither about nature nor about human wellbeing, but about the mutual dependencies between nature and human wellbeing. These mutual interdependencies, however, create tensions and contradictions that manifest themselves in the boundary negotiations between different scientific disciplines and between science and society. This paper shows that approaches from Social Ecology can address these boundary negotiations and the power relations involved more explicitly. Finally, this implies the urgent need for more inter-and transdisciplinary collaboration in ES research. We conclude (1) that the social-ecological nature of ES must be elaborated more carefully while explicitly focussing on the interdependencies between nature and society; (2) to better implement inter-and transdisciplinary methods into ES research; and (3) that such ES research can-and to some extent already does-substantially enhance international research programmes such as Future Earth.

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“…The eco-cycle concept (Ravetz, 2000;Eco-Cycle, 2014) represents the industrial metabolism (Fischer-Kowalski and Haberl, 1998) in a socio-technical system (Geels, 2012) where substances or resources continuously circulate within the socio-economic system with low or no leakage of the resources. The term eco-cycle is used in this study to represent nearly closed-loop material flows or very low leakage in the mobile phone product system.…”

Section: The Eco-cycle Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying ways of closing the metal flow loop in the global mobile phone product system: A system dynamics modeling approach

Sinha

Laurenti

Singh

et al. 2016

Resources, Conservation and Recycling

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a b s t r a c tIn the past few decades, e-waste has emerged as one of the fastest growing and increasingly complex waste flows world-wide. Within e-waste, the life cycle of the mobile phone product system is particularly important because of: (1) the increasing quantities of mobile phones in this waste flow; and (2) the sustainability challenges associated with the emerging economies of reuse, refurbishment, and export of used mobile phones. This study examined the possibilities of closing the material flow loop in the global mobile phone product system (GMPPS) while addressing the broad sustainability challenges linked to recovery of materials. This was done using an adapted system dynamics modeling approach to investigate the dominant paths and drivers for closing the metal flow loop through the concept of eco-cycle. Two indicators were chosen to define the closed loop system: loop leakage and loop efficiency. Sensitivity analysis of selected parameters was used to identify potential drivers for closing the metal flow loop. The modeling work indicated leverage for management strategies aimed at closing the loop in: (i) collection systems for used phones, (ii) mobile phone use time, and (ii) informal recycling in developing countries. By analyzing the dominant parameters, an eco-cycle scenario that could promote a closed loop system by decreasing pressures on virgin materials was formulated. Improved policy support and product service systems could synchronize growth between upstream producers and end-of-life organizations and help achieve circular production and consumption in the GMPPS.

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Sustainable development: socio‐economic metabolism and colonization of nature

Cited by 105 publications

References 4 publications

The Circular Economy: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Concept and Application in a Global Context

The Circular Economy: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Concept and Application in a Global Context

Ecosystem Services as a Boundary Concept: Arguments from Social Ecology

Identifying ways of closing the metal flow loop in the global mobile phone product system: A system dynamics modeling approach

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