Industrial Ecology and Ecological Engineering: Opportunities for Symbiosis

Ecological engineering (EE) and industrial ecology (IE) strive to balance humanity's activities with nature. The disciplines have emerged separately but share theoretical foundations and philosophies on how to address today's complex environmental issues. Although EE and IE share motive, goals, theories, and philosophies, there are many differences. These similarities and differences may make for a strong symbiotic relationship between the two fields. The goals of this article are (1) to compare and contrast the two fields to identify opportunities for collaboration and integration and (2) to suggest three cross‐disciplinary focal areas that bridge EE and IE. The first symbiotic area, ecosystem engineering for byproduct recovery, is defined as the design, creation, and management of living ecosystems (e.g., forests, wetlands) that utilize the by‐products of industrial systems. Examples of this exist, including constructed wetlands for lead recovery and phyto‐mining of nickel tailings. The second symbiotic focus is entitled “ecosystem analogues for industrial ecology”, which fits with a founding principle of IE to strive to have industry emulate the energy efficiencies and material cycles of natural ecosystems. This focal area quantifies the ecological analogy and exploits the tremendous library of design alternatives that nature has developed over thousands of years to deal with varied resource situations. The third focal area is termed “eco‐system information engineering.” The means by which living ecosystems have created robust knowledge systems and information cycles should be understood in terms useful for managing current society's information explosion. As industrial society evolves toward the information society, holistic models are needed that account for the available energy and material resources required to operate effective information ecosystems, such as service industries.