Minnesotas Seattle10 Organizing Committee

Progress in Industrial Ecology – An International Journal (PIE) contributes to international research and practice in industrial ecology for sustainable development. PIE aims to establish channels of communication between academics, practitioners, business stakeholders and the government with an interdisciplinary and international approach to challenges of corporate social responsibility and inter-organisational environmental management.

Objectives

The objective of PIE is to bridge material and energy flow analysis (MFA) to business studies, management and organisational studies and to corporate environmental management. In this way, our objective is to contribute to the ecological, but also to the social and economic dimensions, of sustainable development. While the approach of PIE in combining engineering and natural science orientated methods with social science or business economics methods is a novel and fresh contribution to the theory of industrial ecology, the journal also sees this bridge as the critical step that must be taken to turn industrial ecology theory to industrial ecology practice.

Readership

Academics, practitioners, business stakeholders and the government and others involved in sustainable development research and practice, in material and energy flow studies and applications and in corporate social responsibility and environmental management.

Contents

We encourage the use of a systems approach to the flows of matter and energy. This provides a vehicle to complement intra-organisational environmental management with inter-organisational environmental management, because the physical flows cross products, process and firm boundaries. Inter-organisational environmental management addresses the entire life cycle of products from cradle to grave and all the networks, economic actors and business stakeholders along this life cycle.

Subject coverage

Topics covered include the following with the underlying aim to contribute to sustainable development through industrial ecology research and practice:

Material and energy flow analysis

• Industrial metabolism
• Material flow analysis (MFA)
• Energy flow analysis
• Life cycle assessment (LCA)
• Substance flow analysis (SFA)
• Eco-industrial parks, industrial symbiosis and industrial ecosystems

Business and environmental management

• Business strategy and inter-organisational environmental management
• Life cycle management
• Environmental supply chain management
• Integrated chain management
• Environmental value chain management
• Environmental stakeholder management
• Environmental network management
• Environmental management systems (EMS) and inter-organisational management
• Environmental auditing and reporting and inter-organisational management
• Regional environmental management systems (REMS)
• Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
• SMEs and inter-organisational environmental management
• Decision-making analysis and the environment

Policy

• Environmental policy instruments and industrial ecology
• Extended producer responsibility
• Cleaner production

Theory

• Industrial ecosystem metaphor and analogy
• Ecological economics
• Philosophy of science, ethics and the scientific field of industrial ecology
• Sustainable development and industrial ecology