Opportunities for the critical decade – decoupling well-being from environmental pressures and impacts
Abstract
The
second wave of industrialization and urbanization in many developing countries,
and continuing economic growth and consumption in industrialized countries,
have led to an acceleration of natural resource use, climate change and a suite
of related environmental impacts. The supply chains for natural resources have
become more complex and it is harder today to gain knowledge about the
environmental footprint of certain products and processes. While the
industrialization of developing countries has lifted millions out of poverty it
has also contributed to increased global environmental change. To reverse this
trend, and to allow the global economy to stay within the limits of the Earth’s
resources and ecosystems, the new sustainable development goals call for
economic activity and consumption and production processes to be underpinned by
large investment and appropriate policy settings to guide decoupling of
economic activity from environmental pressure and impacts. This opens a huge
window of opportunity for industrial ecology to deliver the knowledge base to
transition the current economic pattern to sustainable consumption and
production. Industrial ecology concepts and tools support creating sustainable
value chains for products and services, to build human settlements and design
industrial systems to be maintained with lower material and energy throughput
and with fewer emissions. For new industrial ecology technologies and practices
to become economically viable and socially acceptable it will require new
policy settings and business decisions supported by institutions and governance
arrangements that encourage and drive innovation and experiments that
ultimately serve decoupling. This conference will investigate the newest
insights from the science of industrial ecology to support technological
solutions, policy innovation and new business models for sustainable
development. This is a critical decade for reconciling human development and
environmental protection and we explore the contribution industrial ecology can
make.
The 10th
biennial Gordon Research Conference on Industrial Ecology (GRC-IE) will be held
at the Stoweflake Conference Center, Stowe, Vermont, June 19 to 24, 2016. A companion
meeting for graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, the Gordon
Research Seminar on Industrial Ecology (GRS-IE), will be held in conjunction
with the GRC-IE.
Please see the websites for more information:
Heinz Schandl
CSIRO, Australia
2016 GRC Conference Chair
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