Progress in Human Geography 32(4) (2008) pp.

525–540

Industrial ecosystems? The use of tropes
in the literature of industrial ecology and
eco-industrial parks
Phil McManus1* and David Gibbs2
1
School of Geosciences, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
2
Department of Geography, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, UK

Abstract: Industrial ecology is often promoted as a practice to close industrial production loops and
reduce waste, thereby making better use of resources and preventing the overuse of raw materials.
Eco-industrial parks (EIPs) are the spatial concentrations of businesses that use the by-products
of one industrial process as inputs to another. Both sets of practices are based on particular tropes
involving nature. This paper explores the use of various tropes in the literature of industrial ecology
and EIPs. It highlights the need better to understand the pre-theoretical and theoretical bases of
industrial ecology and to increase the potential for practical implementation by applying insights
from the literatures of urban planning, social science and economic geography.

Key words: eco-industrial parks, environmental history, industrial ecology, nature, trope, urban,
urban planning.

I Introduction: a new paradigm for
sustainability?
What I appreciate in industrial ecology is its
dimension of enthusiastic and innovative, but
also responsible, citizenship. Faced with an im-
passe, we are not seeking to turn back the way
we came, but, on the contrary, we are trying
to go beyond it, driven by a movement that
nothing must stop. (Chirac, 2003: 12)
In this paper we attempt to unpack the con-
cept of industrial ecology, and particularly
its realization in the concrete form of eco-
industrial parks (EIPs). Some authors have
made substantive claims that industrial
ecology offers a new paradigm for environ-
mental research. For example, Ashford and
Côté (1997) term it a new unifying principle
to operationalize sustainable develop-
ment, Allenby (1999) calls it the ‘science of
sustainability’ and Ehrenfeld (2004: 828)
suggests it constitutes ‘a new paradigm with
the potential to break through the stalemate
in the game of sustainability’.
Given the growing interest in industrial
ecology this would seem an appropriate point
to reflect on the concept and whether it really
does fulfil the claims made for it. Our interest
in this project arises from our past work on
sustainability (see, for example, Gibbs, 2002;

*Author for correspondence. Email: pmcmanus@mail.usyd.edu.au

© 2008 SAGE Publications DOI: 10.1177/0309132507088118

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526 Progress in Human Geography 32(4)
McManus, 2005) which has focused upon sus-
tainability from both a policy perspective and
from the perspective of critical social theory.
We would suggest that a key part of any
future move towards a ‘less unsustainable’
society will necessitate major shifts in the
way that industry operates. The prospects for
this are open to substantial debate, given that
the profit-driven organization of production
has been known to constrain some shifts to-
wards sustainability. Indeed, authors such as
O’Connor argue that capitalism inevitably
degrades the ecological conditions it depends
upon – the second contradiction of capital-
ism (O’Connor, 1998). Thus a tendency to-
wards ecological crisis may therefore be just
as endemic to capitalism as a falling rate of
profit or over-accumulation. However, while
we are mindful of the problems involved in
overcoming the ecological contradictions
of capitalism (see Gibbs, 2006), we believe
industrial ecology approaches may help to
provide at least a temporary fix and involve
‘relative (but significant) changes into more
environmentally sound directions’ (Mol,
2002: 97). A number of initiatives, including
ISO standards, green architecture and
benchmarking, have attempted to improve
the sustainability of industry, but these ef-
forts are usually confined to the operations of
a single firm. While this limitation makes such
initiatives easier to introduce and, perhaps,
makes them more attractive to industry, they
do not address the need for more substantive
shifts in the organization of production. Pro-
ponents of industrial ecology argue that the
concept addresses not only the activities of
individual firms, but also their wider field of
operations, thereby engendering not just
incremental changes in efficiency and minor
modifications of product chains, but a more
substantive change in industrial structures.
Thus Chertow (2004) maintains that
industrial ecology operates at three levels.
At the level of the firm it includes design
for environment, pollution prevention, eco-
efficiency and green accounting. Across firms
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it involves industrial symbiosis, life cycle
analysis and industrial sector initiatives, while
at the regional/global level it includes budgets
and cycles, as well as materials and energy
flow studies (industrial metabolism) and
dematerialization and decarbonization. By
fostering co-operation among companies,
industrial ecology thus attempts to move
beyond a focus on the individual firm. The
argument is that, through co-operation in an
industrial ecosystem, businesses can improve
their combined environmental perform-
ance by measures that could increase profit
margins and thereby potentially advance
economic development.
Despite these arguments concerning the
benefits to industry and the expansion of
policy initiatives to facilitate development,
the participation by firms in industrial eco-
logy projects has been much slower than
anticipated by some of its advocates. On
the one hand we might regard this simply
as a question of implementation, as new
organizational structures take time to gain
acceptance. More fundamentally, we argue
that the slow take-up may be related to
limitations of industrial ecology itself. In
particular, we suggest that while industrial
ecology’s central emphasis upon the lessons
to be learned from natural ecosystems has
helped to make it an attractive proposition for
policy-makers, the central ‘natural’ analogy
is flawed. Thus we address questions of per-
ceptions of nature and their transference to
industrial systems by exploring the tropes
related to industrial ecology and EIPs.
Our aim in this paper is to identify the tropes
used to develop, justify and communicate the
idea of industrial ecology and the concept
of an EIP. This, we suggest, is not just an
intellectual exercise. The use of tropes is a
defining feature of industrial ecology and is
fundamental to both the way industrial
ecology has evolved as a theory and to its
practical implementation in policy terms.
If the source domain of natural systems is
inappropriate, then industrial ecology may
 Phil McManus and David Gibbs: Industrial ecosystems? 527
have limited applicability. An analysis of
tropes is therefore central to any critique of
industrial ecology and not just a novel means
of examining the literature. It helps to explain
the high potential perceived in industrial
ecology, yet also explains the gap between
this perceived potential and the seemingly
‘glacial’ speed of implementation. We suggest
that basing policies upon an idealistic trope
of nature and its unproblematized transfer to
industrial systems is highly questionable. At
the same time, however, we are concerned
with identifying and retaining those elem-
ents that are potentially promising, beneficial
and workable within the industrial ecology
literature.
The organization of the paper is as fol-
lows. In the following two sections of the
paper we define the concepts of industrial
ecology and EIPs. In section IV we discuss the
use of tropes in the development of theory,
particularly in relation to ecological theory.
The central sections (V and VI) of the paper
offer a critique of the use of tropes in in-
dustrial ecology, suggest modifications to its
conceptualization and offer ideas for further
research relating to its implementation. The
paper concludes by highlighting the problems
Table 1 Definitions of industrial ecology
Definition
[Industrial ecology aims] to develop a more closed industrial
ecosystem, one that is more sustainable.
Industrial ecology … is a systems view in which one seeks to
optimize the total materials cycle from virgin material, to finished
material, to component, to product, to obsolete product, and
to ultimate disposal. Factors to be optimized include resources,
energy, and capital.
Industrial ecology takes a systems view of the use and
environmental impacts of materials and energy in industrial
societies. It employs the ecological analogy in several ways,
including analysis of materials flows.
… use nature’s model of material recycling, energy cascading
and solar energy-based sustainable ecosystem in transforming
unsustainable, fossil fuel-based and wasteful industrial systems
into more ecosystem-like systems
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caused in the practical implementation of
industrial ecology as a result of the height-
ened expectations arising from the use of
tropes. We also raise a set of issues about
how better to implement industrial ecology,
both in light of this understanding and the
knowledge gained from the literature of
urban planning, social science and economic
geography.
II Industrial ecology: definitions and
concept
Industrial ecology (IE) is a notion that suggests
there is potential to convert ‘waste outputs’
into ‘resource inputs’, thereby reducing the
economic, social and environmental costs
of waste disposal, while simultaneously pre-
venting the need to utilize more raw materials
for use in production. There are numerous
definitions in existence. However, some
authors have avoided a definitive statement,
opting instead to identify key character-
istics of industrial ecology and justifying this
position by arguing that the term means dif-
ferent things to different people (Andrews,
1999). For the purposes of elucidation, Table 1
offers a number of definitions by leading IE
researchers.
Reference
Frosch and Gallopoulos
(1989: 94)
Graedel and Allenby
(1995: 9)
Andrews (1999: 366)
Korhonen et al. (2004)
528 Progress in Human Geography 32(4)
The definitions in Table 1, and others, are
based on the idea that the traditional model of
industrial activity is immature, wasteful and
should be changed to that of an integrated
industrial ecosystem. Following the seminal
statement of Frosch and Gallopoulos (1989),
the industrial ecosystem is seen as analogous
to a natural ecosystem. Industrial ecology
applies the ecosystem metaphor and model
to suggest that industrial systems should be
restructured in order to make them com-
patible with the way natural ecosystems
function. ‘An overarching goal of IE is the
establishment of an industrial system that
cycles virtually all of the materials it uses
and releases a minimal amount of waste to
the environment’ (Wernick and Ausubel,
1997: 8). This means that firms should opti-
mize the consumption of energy and
materials, minimize waste generation and
use the effluents of one process as the raw
material for another process. In another
ecological parallel, proponents of industrial
ecology argue that niche firms may develop
to take advantage of new opportunities in
the industrial ecosystem (eg, in materials
reprocessing) and that energy cascading
can occur between firms. Further analogies
are drawn with various aspects of natural
ecosystems to the disadvantage of current
industrial organizational forms. For example,
while in natural systems the energy and/
or matter produced by one species is con-
sumed by another, surplus heat from indus-
trial processes is commonly dissipated in the
atmosphere and potentially recyclable pro-
ducts simply disposed of as waste.
The notion of waste is central to the
industrial ecology literature. An uncritical ac-
ceptance of the notion of ‘waste’ can be used
to justify the perpetuation and expansion of
a linear economic process that constructs
nature as resources, accepts ‘throughput’
and sees waste as an inherent component
of the production and consumption process.
Herman Daly (1991) employs the analogy
of a lake1 to highlight concerns about inputs,
throughputs and outputs, including waste
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and advocates the establishment of a ‘steady
state economy’.
While industrial ecology is not neces-
sarily predicated on the notion of a steady
state economy, it employs the concepts de-
veloped by Daly to advocate the reduction
of throughput. Terms such as ‘roundput’,
‘closing the loop’ and ‘industrial symbiosis’
are used to distinguish industrial ecology
from existing throughput systems of industry
that are materially open and rely on non-
renewables (Korhonen et al., 2004). This
approach has been used by many leading
environmental thinkers to offer critiques
of both capitalist and socialist modes of
economic production as expansionist and
linear and therefore non-sustainable (see, for
example, Daly, 1996; Rees, 1997; Hawken
et al., 1999). However, despite the common
contemporary perception of a linear eco-
nomy in these critiques, Pierre Desrochers
(2002a; 2002b) has, in turn, criticized this
line of taken-for-granted thinking to demon-
strate that this perception of a linear process
does not always accord with the historical
evidence. Drawing upon empirical analyses
of earlier industrial eras and specific indus-
trial activities, he demonstrates that many
industrial practices in the late 19th and early
20th centuries involved extensive recycling
behaviour and the use of by-products in
myriad ways.
Other historical evidence supports this
viewpoint. Thus Matthews (1915) advocated
the use of destructors (incinerators) only for
that waste which, unlike tins and cardboard
boxes which had a marketable value, could
not be converted into manure, or otherwise
recycled. Similarly, Coward (1983) notes
that, in the latter half of the 19th century
in Sydney, the recovery of rags was en-
couraged because they could be sold for
furniture or mattress stuffing. Desrochers
(2002a; 2002b) suggests that while these
‘loop closing’ practices are desirable and
existed for a long time in market economies,
government regulations have subsequently
served to reduce or prevent the process.
 Phil McManus and David Gibbs: Industrial ecosystems? 529
He is critical of attempts to recreate this be-
haviour through policy intervention, arguing
that evidence from the past stresses the key
role of the market in creating recycling and
reuse. What we see in these examples, and in
the numerous instances cited in Desrochers
(2002a), is a recognition of diversity in the
notion of ‘waste’ and a willingness to treat
different types of waste in different ways.
This awareness appears relevant today when
cities are potentially generating more waste
than ever before, and when ideas for new
industrial approaches are premised on the
belief that the existing economic system is
based upon linear processes.
III From theory to policy: eco-industrial
parks
As with other environmental approaches
such as ecological modernization, industrial
ecology is utilized as both theory and policy
prescription. Much work on industrial eco-
logy tends towards the normative, analyzing
what could be done in particular industrial cir-
cumstances. In policy terms, there has been a
focus on implementing industrial ecology
through the creation of linkages between
firms in a specific geographic area – an ‘eco-
industrial park’. This may be defined as:
a community of businesses that co-operate
with each other and with the local community
to efficiently share resources (information,
materials, water, energy, infrastructure and
natural habitat) … leading to economic gains,
gains in environmental quality and equitable
enhancement of human resources for the
business and local community. (Cohen-
Rosenthal, 2003: 19)
As outlined earlier, industrial ecology
involves going beyond the confines of indi-
vidual firms and into networking activities
among firms. Korhonen (2002) labels these
approaches respectively as ‘product’ (that
is, a technical exercise within a corporation)
and ‘geographical’ and notes that, while
they are compatible in some ways, there are
also tensions between them. The technical,
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‘product’, approach within a corporation
is, arguably, easier to implement because it
does not require external negotiations of the
sort necessary to develop EIPs or the like
(that is, the geographic approach to industrial
ecology).2 EIPs thus represent a deliberate
attempt to apply the principles of industrial
ecology in a specific location through policy
intervention, driven by both the private, and,
predominantly, the public sector (Gibbs and
Deutz, 2005). This echoes earlier work in
industrial geography on the growth of plan-
ned industrial parks in developed nations
(Barr, 1983). Barr (1983: 434) points out
that in earlier forms of park development and
promotion, policy intervention was intended
to influence not just the location of firms,
but also their functional linkages including
‘basic elements related to waste treatment,
resource recovery, energy consumption and
industrial processing’. A number of local and
regional projects have been initiated to plan
and actively to develop EIPs in the USA,
Europe, Asia and Australasia (see, amongst
others, BCSD, 2002; Chiu and Yong, 2004;
Eilering and Vermeulen, 2004; Erkman and
Ramaswamy, 2003; Heeres et al., 2004;
Lowe, 2003; Mirata, 2004). Indeed, Heeres
et al. argue that interest in such projects:
has grown enormously among national and
regional governments and industries in many
countries. It is believed that a well planned,
functioning EIP has the potential to both
[sic] benefit the economy and substantially
relieve environmental pressure in and near the
location of its development. (2004: 985)
Echoing Barr’s (1983) earlier work on the
different forms of industrial park, Roberts
(2002, 2004) notes that EIPs can vary in
form from a Green Industry Park (where
individual industries are clean but have no
synergies with other sites), to Integrated
Eco-Industry Parks (involving geographical
concentrations of firms and synergies
between facilities) through to a Networked
Eco-Industrial System (creating synergies,
but spread over a metropolitan or larger
530 Progress in Human Geography 32(4)
area). According to some authors, the
challenge has been to develop suitable role
models of EIPs for policy implementation
through ‘best practice’ planning procedures
(see Grant, 2000; Lambert and Boons,
2002). Unfortunately, the emphasis in the
literature is predominantly on one model, the
town of Kalundborg in Denmark. This much-
cited exemplar has developed around a coal-
fired power station where a web of waste
and energy exchanges has developed among
the power plant, the local city administration,
a refinery, a fish farm, a pharmaceuticals
plant and a wallboard manufacturer. 3 It
emerged over a period of about 30 years,
and was achieved without consultants to
design potential interactions, government
financial support to encourage interactions
or a higher level of administration to ove-
rsee the interactions (Desrochers, 2001).
While much of the literature has focused on
emulating the design and interactions present
at Kalundborg, Desrochers (2001) focuses
on the processes of private sector invest-
ment and argues that, rather than being an
example of designed symbiosis, Kalundborg
is a contemporary example of industrial
symbiosis that has evolved through market
forces ‘long before the advent of modern
environmental consciousness and regulation’
(Desrochers, 2001: 349).
IV Tropes and analogy in industrial
ecology
So far, very little has been done to examine in
depth the validity and meaning of the industrial
ecology analogy. (Erkman, 2003: 339)
… metaphor and analogy are problematic
and rather speculative if used for the context
of justification. (Isenmann, 2003: 151)
Just as an analysis of industrial history enables
a more rigorous understanding of the as-
sumptions of industrial ecology, an analysis
of the tropes, metaphors and analogies that
are applied to industrial ecology is important
in developing a more thorough understanding
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of the concept. Moreover, we are interested
here in exploring whether the source domain
of natural ecosystems provides useful meta-
phors to understand concepts of industrial
ecology. One problem is that the literature
on industrial ecology frequently appears to
conflate metaphors and analogies with con-
cepts (Andrews, 1999; Desrochers, 2002a),
a mistake that Thompson attributed to
Althusser’s Marxist structuralism:
Analogies may be good or bad … they serve
the purpose of explication or illustration – they
are a condiment to argument often used only
once or twice in passing, but they are not the
argument itself. … [A]nalogies, metaphors,
images are not the same thing as concepts …
The graveyard of philosophy is cluttered with
grand systems which mistook analogies for
concepts. (Thompson, 1978: 296)
This is a crucial point. A concept is an ab-
straction. It is an idea. It is debatable. Ana-
logies are comparisons designed to highlight
important similarities. When employed
appropriately, they may illustrate the argu-
ment. In the case of industrial ecology, pro-
ponents derive the concept from an analogy
of what they consider to be desirable, ie,
industrial systems as ecosystems. Thus are
concept and analogy conflated. In this paper
we interrogate the use of such tropes in
industrial ecology to identify how this con-
flation occurs.
Tropes are turns of phrase used to em-
bellish, or the figurative use of, an expression.
They come in many forms, with the more
familiar including metaphor, metonymy and
the better known examples of euphemism,
hyperbole and simile. Metaphors are com-
parisons between objects, experiences or
actions where there is a similarity or cor-
relation between the two. Metonymy is a
trope where something is used to stand for
another entity. It is an act of replacement
rather than comparison. Tropes are not
value-neutral. They offer important insights
into perceptions, and how we understand
the world.
 Phil McManus and David Gibbs: Industrial ecosystems? 531
This has long been recognized in geo-
graphy. For example, Chorley and Haggett
(1967: 24) used the term ‘models’ to ‘consti-
tute a bridge between the observation and
theoretical levels’, while Kearns (1997) ex-
plored the use of narrative and metaphor
in geographies of health, noting that ‘meta-
phor is the application of a word or idea
to something which it is imaginatively but
not literally applicable’ and that people use
metaphors ‘to link the unfamiliar with the
familiar’ (p. 271).
We do not intend to explore the nuances
of different types of tropes here. Rather,
we draw on the work of Lakoff and Johnson
(1980; 1999) who employ conceptual meta-
phor theory to focus on the source and the
target domains of various tropes. In this work,
the source domain provides a vocabulary
and conceptual inferences, while the target
domain is that ‘to which vocabulary and
inferences are extended metaphorically’
(Ozcaliskan, 2005: 294). Lakoff and
Johnson’s (1999) idea of the target domain
is similar to the Chorley and Haggett (1967)
metaphor of a bridge spanning the known
(through observation) and theoretical levels.
The work of Lakoff and Johnson (1999)
emphasises the transfer of meaning from a
known source to a designated target (eg,
love is a battlefield). An important reason
for the use of metaphors is that ‘they allow
for the explication of more abstract concepts
in terms that are more familiar and easy to
understand’ (Wee, 2005: 379). Research
on conceptual metaphor theory has been
used widely, from the understanding of
space that could lead to the development
of geographic information systems through
to the development of children’s language
(Mark and Frank, 1996; Ozcaliskan, 2005)
Recently, Lakoff and Johnson’s (1999) work
has been critiqued by Wee (2005) who
argues that while they examine transfers of
meaning from the source to the designated
target, they do not explore situations when
a writer may attempt to create a new source
domain.
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V Five main tropes used in industrial
ecology
In this section of the paper we outline the use
of tropes in industrial ecology, beginning with
representations of conventional industry.
1 Representing conventional industry
Before looking at the tropes used to support
the emerging concept of industrial ecology,
it is pertinent to investigate those used to
understand what it is seeking to replace.
The dominant trope in the latter instance
could be labelled the ‘existing industrial
system’ or ‘conventional industry’, usually
represented as a wasteful, linear process. A
number of authors have discussed the use of
metaphor and analogy in industrial ecology
(Graedel, 1996; Andrews, 1999; Desrochers,
2002a; Erkman, 2003; Isenmann, 2003).
Most, with the possible exception of
Desrochers (2002a), begin by discussing
the use of the nature metaphor in industrial
ecology as an alternative to a linear system.
Desrochers refutes this linear vision, of raw
material becoming throughput and, later,
waste, through his use of environmental
history, particularly in regard to past ways
of seeing waste as a resource. The conven-
tional industrial system was not simply a
pipeline conveying materials and later waste
(although this undoubtedly occurred), but a
more complex system of resource use and
reuse organized by market forces.
2 The use of nature metaphors
Much is to be gained from understanding bet-
ter the metaphor of the natural ecosystem,
and much is to be lost by using it inappro-
priately. (Bey, 2001: 41)
The use of nature as a metaphor is funda-
mental to industrial ecology (Allenby, 1999;
Andrews, 1999). It has been studied more than
the use of other concepts such as under-
standing conventional industrial systems
or the importance of time (see Andrews,
1999; Bey, 2001; Erkman, 2003; Isenmann,
2003). According to Andrews (1999: 364),
532 Progress in Human Geography 32(4)
the term industrial ecology ‘captures the
Darwinian essence of both markets and
ecosystems’.4 But Gay Hawkins claims that
much environmental thinking ‘too readily
derives its authority from fundamental as-
sumptions about nature and purity’ (2003:
49). This tendency can be seen in the juxta-
position of ‘industrial’ (bad, brown, artificial)
and ‘ecology’ (good, green, natural),
which is at once evocative and disturbing
(Andrews, 1999). Industrial ecology unites
these apparent binaries, but at the same time
it needs them to remain intact in order to
derive its power. If nature is understood as
being other than ‘good, green, natural’ and
efficient – in that nothing in nature is wasted –
then the metaphor is compromised.
Isenmann (2003: 148) uncovered the
‘hidden philosophy of nature’ contained
within the writings of 20 industrial eco-
logists. He referred to this use of nature as
being ‘hidden’ rather than ‘neglected’ and
found that ‘in industrial ecology nature is
employed as model explicitly or at least im-
plicitly, often phrased in terms of a natural
ecosystem metaphor and frequently based
on a proclaimed persuasive analogy between
industrial systems and natural ecosystems’.
What is perhaps surprising about the use
of nature here is the concept of ecology as
representing ‘natural ecosystems’. Graedel
(1996) demonstrates how industrial eco-
logy draws upon biological ecology for its
theoretical basis, but emphasizes that ‘in a
world in which no industrial ecosystem is
free of biological influence, it is appropriate
to abandon the artificial division between
the two frameworks and develop a new
synthesis’ (p. 69). He argues this new com-
bination is not biological ecology, or even in-
dustrial ecology, ‘but their combination:
earth system ecology’ (Graedel, 1996: 76).
However, following Andrews (1999), the
ecological–industrial distinction is often valued
because of the juxtaposition of discursive
binaries, which must remain intact at least until
the synthesis can, if possible, be constructed
as positive more on its own terms.
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Indeed, the concept of integration intro-
duced by Graedel (1996) does not appear to
have been followed by subsequent authors
working in the industrial ecology field. As
Isenmann (2003) shows, many writers main-
tain the discursive distinction between eco-
logical or biological systems and industrial
systems, and simply transfer the metaphor
of pristine nature into the target domain of
industrial systems and industrial ecology. In
these arguments, industrial ecology looks ‘to
the natural world for models of … efficient
use of resources’ (Cleveland, 1999: 148) –
industrial ecology is modelled on natural
systems because nature is seen as efficient in
its use of resources and handling of wastes.
Importantly, what is specified is a particular
form of ecosystem, that is, ‘a mature natural
ecological community [that] operates as a
waste minimizing system’ (Richards et al.,
1994: 3). This metaphor is still based on nature
as pristine, but highlights the importance of
time in creating what is perceived to be an
efficiently operating version of nature.
These metaphors of nature have been
challenged by recent developments in geo-
graphy and other disciplines. Thus, industrial
ecology is rooted in a perspective disputed in
recent years through work exploring nature
– society hybrids and notions of ‘second
nature’, as well as radical challenges to
the assumptions of equilibrium models of
science (eg, Demeritt, 1994; Scoones, 1999;
Whatmore, 2002). The idea of a ‘balance
of nature’ has been challenged by the ‘new
ecologists’ (Botkin, 1990) and it is now gen-
erally accepted by scientific ecologists that,
far from ecosystems being self-regulating
and tending towards a state of equilibrium
and conservation’s ‘balance of nature’ idea
(Adams, 1997), they are innately dynamic
and in constant flux. In his book The new
nature, Low (2002) highlights the adapt-
ability of particular species of birds, animals
and plants to human-created environments,
and the dependency of particular species
on highly modified environments for their
survival.
 Phil McManus and David Gibbs: Industrial ecosystems? 533
If industrial ecology is to be based on
metaphors of nature, it could be argued
that it currently derives such metaphors
from a source domain that runs counter to
the main message of the new ecology. If re-
silience is enhanced by adaptability (Walker
et al., 2004) then current interpretations of
industrial ecology and its implementation in
the form of EIPs limit, potentially at least,
the adaptability of businesses to survive. This
appears to be the main lesson drawn from
recent social analyses of EIPs (Gibbs, 2003) in
which the notion of trust was seen as a crucial
factor in encouraging inter-firm linkages to
reduce waste and develop resource reuse.5
It appears that businesses are cautious about
seeing industrial systems as closed and in
equilibrium. In order to survive, they need to
take account of dynamism in specific markets
in which they participate, and in the wider
economy. They must also have the ability to
respond to these changes.
By overemphasizing features (balance and
closed ecosystems) that scientific ecologists
say do not exist, proponents of industrial
ecology are creating unrealistic expectations
about changes to industrial systems. Indus-
trial ecology could be seen as lying towards
the ‘control’ end of the spectrum of engage-
ment with market forces, and the flaws in
the metaphor highlight the need for what
Adams (1997) calls dynamic engagement
(in the case of nature conservation) rather
than attempts at control. For industry, a key
concern of such dynamic engagement is that
embarking on industrial ecology projects or
locating in an EIP should not overly restrict
the ability of businesses to adapt to changing
circumstances.
A similar engagement with the ‘balance of
nature’ metaphor is undertaken by Andrews
(1999: 373) who suggests that ‘we could en-
courage the industrial ecosystem to evolve
towards a globally efficient, stable, balanced
“climax forest” type of system’. But this
metaphor is developed with his concern that
the ‘tall trees’ (he names Dupont, Exxon, GM
and Microsoft) would ‘probably catch most
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of the sunlight and leave the understorey
dark and dependent’ (Andrews, 1999: 373).
He goes on to question the Hobbesian elem-
ents of industrial ecology, represented by the
‘voracious self-interest of most individual
organisms in ecosystems and economic
systems’. Bey (2001) also uses this mature
ecology metaphor to question the focus
of some industrial ecologists on the single
corporation. He argues that:
The individual participants of a mature
ecosystem use resources and energy in a
sustainable manner because the resource use
of the entire system itself is sustainable. Indi-
vidual participants of an ecosystem have a
reason for being only because the ecosystem
provides niches for them. (Bey, 2001: 39)
As commentators such as Andrews and
Bey recognize, our interpretations of nature
are crucial and require interrogation to
minimize inappropriate use of metaphors
of nature. The taken-for-granted use of
nature metaphors in industrial ecology makes
particular assumptions about the operation
of natural ecosystems that may serve to
oversimplify the potential for its application
in concrete forms such as EIPs. Thus, while
‘metaphors are often discussed as being
“source-driven” in the sense that the know-
ledge associated with the source is claimed
to inform/influence our understanding of
the target’ (Wee, 2005: 371), if the source
is inappropriate then the assumed virtues
of metaphorical familiarity may become a
liability. In Chorley and Haggett’s (1967:
24) terms, this would mean pursuing an
‘inappropriate’ model.
3 Balance
The notion of balance is important in many
environmentalists’ understanding of nature,
again despite critiques from the ‘new ecology’
of authors such as Botkin (1990) which
recognize nature as dynamic, but do not
necessarily believe that it is always moving
to a state of balance. However, the notion
of balance remains central to the concept of
534 Progress in Human Geography 32(4)
sustainable development, the aim of which
is to balance economy, society and ecology.
Thus the importance of stability and balance
was highlighted in the forest metaphor used
by Andrews (1999: 373). According to
Isenmann (2003: 144), ‘balance’ is also a
key trope in promoting industrial ecology.
It is ‘intuitively appealing because it springs
from humanity’s inherent wish to balance
industrial systems and natural ecosystems’
(Isenmann, 2003: 144). While this comment
may be interpreted as deterministic, the ana-
logy of scales and balance does appear to be
an important concern for proponents of
industrial ecology. This should not be sur-
prising, because industrial ecology is premised
on the possibility of devising more ecologic-
ally efficient (and therefore environmentally
benign) systems of production. However, it
says less about the future balance between
production and consumption. In particular,
the dominant focus within industrial ecology
upon inter-firm exchanges and increased
efficiency within the production process
neglects the broader question of consump-
tion issues and the links between geographies
of production (of retail services or housing,
for example) and their consumption. Further,
Ehrenfeld (2004) has suggested that there
could be a ‘rebound effect’ at work whereby
greater efficiency simply produces more
consumer surplus and consumption, thus
negating any eco-efficiency gains.
4 Time and evolution
Industrial ecology may also be interpreted as
an example of metonymy. The (erroneous)
perception of contemporary industry as being
linear in process and wasteful is understood
as childish and immature, whilst industrial
ecology is perceived as the mature, adult
version of industrial development. Evolution
is also the key process for Roberts (2002),
who sees manufacturing as moving from
the contemporary – and hence oxymoronic –
‘Jurassic Park’ estates which do not appear
to incorporate a circular system of outputs
and inputs in their production processes to
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environmentally responsible industrial parks.6
In this example of metonymy, modern in-
dustrial estates are represented as the home
of dinosaurs – an extinct, redundant species
in ecological evolution. Once again, indus-
trial ecology is presented as a later phase in
the evolution of industrial (eco)systems.
However, whereas industrial ecology is
seen as the mature version of industrial devel-
opment, the evolution of industrial ecology
has been likened to the life of a teenager
(Harper and Graedel, 2004). Using this meta-
phor, industrial ecology is still developing
as a field, particularly compared with older
branches of science. Again, such descriptions
of the relative ‘youth’ of industrial ecology
can be countered by the environmental his-
tory of Desrochers (2002a) which identifies
the core activities of industrial ecology as
being present in capitalist economies at least
as early as the 19th century.
5 Food and bodies
Graedel (1996) and Erkman (2003) identify
the importance of the food webs of natural
ecosystems as a metaphor for both the EIP
and the eco-industrial network concepts.
The idea is to mimic nature, through the
establishment of industrial systems that use
wastes from one process as an input into a
subsequent one. This application is similar to
the nature metaphor discussed above but, in
this instance, stress is placed upon the inter-
related aspects of EIPs and networks, rather
than the niche occupied by an individual
corporation that characterizes some of the
industrial ecology literature. Graedel (1996)
also explains the difference between the
metaphors of a food web and a food chain.
The latter is limited as a metaphor for indus-
trial ecology because ‘food chains imply a
linear flow of resources from one trophic level
to the next’ (Graedel, 1996: 81). This inter-
pretation, he notes, is inconsistent with the
complex interactions present in biological
ecology. Graedel (1996: 84) then depicts
the Kalundborg ‘industrial ecosystem’ as
an industrial system of flows, and as a food
 Phil McManus and David Gibbs: Industrial ecosystems? 535
web with the primary producers being coal,
petroleum and water, and the top trophic
level as the human being.
Erkman (2003) also uses the meta-
phors of food and bodies, comparing the
way that some people in industrial societies
have unbalanced diets containing excesses
of fat and sugar with a similar unbalanced
‘industrial diet’. Here, industrial economies
are constructed as bodies, fed an unbalanced
diet of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural
gas. Erkman sees these resources as having
been the ‘blood’ of industrial economies since
the industrial revolution. The solution to this
unsustainable situation is eco-restructuring
through industrial ecology, with the forma-
tion of EIPs as a limited first step. Erkman
raises an important point because some of
the industrial ecology literature does not look
at the sustainability of industrial systems,
ecosystems and societies. The promotion
of Kalundborg by some authors, with no
or minimal recognition of the inherent un-
sustainability of its industrial structure based
on non-renewable fossil fuels, is an example
of why Erkman’s (2003) approach is crucial
for sustainability.
VI Strengthening the concept of
industrial ecology: critique and further
research
Discussion of the use of various tropes em-
ployed to represent industrial ecology, what
it proposes to replace, and the individual cor-
porations engaged in industrial activities, is
helpful in order to understand the concept
and to explain its appeal. Indeed, some
authors go so far as to suggest that without an
interrogation of metaphors and analogies,
industrial ecology is in danger of drifting from
its roots (Bey, 2001). Moreover, the absence
of social scientists in debates around the
future form and direction of research in indus-
trial ecology restricts the field to engineers
and physical scientists who, according to
Andrews (1999: 373), ‘have never studied
the mechanisms of collective human decision
making and the behaviour of organizations’.
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The most fundamental critique of the
analogy between ecology (the biosphere) and
economics (the technosphere) comes from
Ayres (2004). He identifies four major dif-
ferences. First, the economy lacks primary
producers, whereas photosynthesizers exist
in the biosphere. Second, the economic sys-
tem produces outputs of goods and ser-
vices whereas ‘the biosphere produces only
wastes and more of itself plus dead matter’
(Ayres, 2004: 425). Third, the biosphere lacks
markets or voluntary exchanges. Finally,
evolution in nature is driven by reproductive
success and genetic mutation, whereas in an
economy, invention and innovation arise from
‘intelligent economic agents’ (Ayres, 2004:
425). Ayres argues that ‘the analogy between
ecology and economics has very limited value’
(2004: 434) and ‘the economic system is not
analogous to an ecosystem’ (2004: 425).
This point is supported by Tudor et al. (2007:
200) who believe that ‘complete modelling
of eco-park systems on ecological principles
is flawed since cultural and biological sys-
tems are fundamentally different’.
While we could dispute some aspects of
Ayres’ (2004) assessment, on the whole
we concur with these concerns, and would
add others. For example, John Harte, a
physicist and ecologist, has argued that
natural ecosystems provide a poor model for
designing business systems on the basis that
the former are inherently unstable, wasteful
and lack any moral direction (see Anonymous,
2001). Drawing on the conceptual metaphor
theory of Lakoff and Johnson (1999) and
Wee (2005), we note that both the source
domain and the target domain for the transfer
of meaning in industrial ecology are fuzzy and
contested. Nature and the economy are not
static, homogenous entities that can easily be
encapsulated in a trope and transferred from
one domain to another. As Wee (2005: 365)
points out, ‘the source refers to objects or
events whose existence can be taken for
granted’. The problem in industrial ecology is
that this ‘taken-for-grantedness’ in relation
to natural ecosystems is flawed.
536 Progress in Human Geography 32(4)
The failure effectively to implement the
EIP concept, despite its apparent potential,
is troubling. Gibbs et al. (2005) highlight the
need to consider issues such as trust and
vulnerability in co-operation processes, but
there is also a requirement to explore how
industrial location decisions are being made
and the current levels of knowledge and ac-
ceptance of industrial ecology within firms.
Similarly, it is useful to know the barriers to
the implementation of this concept from the
perspective of industrialists, urban planners
and government officials. As Barr (1983)
points out in relation to industrial estates,
each of these groups has different aims and
objectives regarding locational choices. Work
has been undertaken on implementation
processes, but more is required, particularly
on the concept of EIPs and regions. Here,
perspectives range from Desrochers’ (2001;
2002a; 2002b) advocacy of private planning
by corporations freed from the restrictive
influence of governments, through to
Hawken’s (1993) optimistic invitation to
‘imagine what a team of designers could come
up with were they to start from scratch, loc-
ating and specifying industries and factories
that had potentially synergistic and sym-
biotic relationships’ (p. 63). Further research
on the slow uptake of this concept, from the
perspective of industrialists, urban planners
and government officials, is required.
Pizzocaro (1998: 231) believes that ‘the
ecological metaphor has generated oper-
ative tools aimed at waste generation
reduction, reuse, and optimization of manu-
facturing cycles’. This view is reflected
by Korhonen (2001: 254), who sees eco-
system characteristics being translated into
principles for industrial ecosystems. While
gradual evolution is one characteristic that
is identified in nature and transferred to
industrial ecosystems, there is nothing in
nature to indicate whether it should be
facilitated primarily through private plan-
ning (Desrochers, 2001; 2002a; 2002b),
design (Hawken, 1993), urban planning
(Andrews, 1999; van Leeuwen et al., 2003)
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or a combination of concepts drawn from
economic geography and urban planning/
urban governance (Roberts, 2004). In an ana-
lysis of 15 ‘planned’ and 12 ‘self-organized’
industrial symbiosis projects, Chertow (2007)
suggests that projects planned by ‘outsiders’
de novo have rarely been successful. By con-
trast, pre-existing self-organizing systems
are more successful in generating symbiotic
exchanges although they are ‘never mapped
and described using ecological meta-
phors’ (Chertow, 2007: 20). She goes on
to argue that ‘uncovering’ such pre-existing
industrial ecosystems and then building on
these through public policy intervention is
a more fruitful task than establishing new
EIPs. While it is beyond the scope of this
paper to discuss such implementation in
detail (see Tudor et al., 2007, for a review of
implementation strategies), our conclusions
stress the importance of understanding the
use of tropes in relation to industrial ecology
and EIPs so that there is a clearer idea of
what is intended to be implemented and
achieved.
VII Conclusion
We have argued here that the use of nature
as an analogy is central to the industrial
ecology literature. However, while such
tropes can create an immediate appeal
for industrial ecology and EIPs as a new
form of industrial organization that seems
compatible with sustainable development,
there is a substantial gulf between the per-
ceived potential of this concept and its im-
plementation (Gibbs and Deutz, 2007).
This disjunction occurs because the tropes
are flawed, and we would argue that their
benefits in the development of theory are
overshadowed by their weaknesses.
As emphasized in this paper, a concept is
an abstraction. Analogies are comparisons
designed to highlight important similarities.
When analogies are employed appropriately,
they may illustrate the argument. We have
demonstrated that in the case of industrial
ecology, proponents derive the concept from
 Phil McManus and David Gibbs: Industrial ecosystems? 537
an analogy of what they consider to be de-
sirable, ie, industrial systems as ecosystems.
The concept and the analogy are conflated.
Therefore, our discussion of metaphors and
tropes is not just an intellectual exercise.
The theory that emerges from a problem-
atic linking of nature and economy is being
used to raise support for, and to justify the
implementation of, worldwide attempts to
develop EIPs (see the collection of chapters
in Cohen-Rosenthal and Musnikow, 2003
for examples). In large part, the motivating
factor that captures the initial imagination
of policy-makers and park developers is the
use of nature metaphors. Just to take one
example, promotional material for the Red
Hills Ecoplex in Mississippi states: ‘still think
of “industrial park” as synonymous with
“smoke stack”, “pollution” and “expensive
eyesore”? Fortunately it’s time to think again
… the EcoPlex mimics a natural, efficient
ecosystem’.
Thus the take-up by policy-makers and
developers of what we have argued are a
flawed set of taken-for-granted assumptions
about the ways that natural ecosystems
operate has encouraged a great deal
of initial optimism about the potential to
create industrial ecosystems that reduce
waste and encourage ‘roundput’ (Gibbs and
Deutz, 2007). What matters then is the
work that tropes and metaphors are being
made to do. In this instance, drawing upon
metaphors from an inappropriate (and in
part discredited) source domain has created
unrealistic expectations about what can
be achieved through planning. The danger
is that, lacking immediate results and in the
absence of observable flows of wastes and
energy, the implementation of such schemes
to encourage eco-efficiency may subse-
quently be abandoned. For example, of the
four EIPs set up in the USA by the President’s
Council on Sustainable Development in 1994
at Cape Charles, Chattanooga, Brownsville
and Baltimore, only Cape Charles was
eventually developed and even this site
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abandoned the eco-industrial theme when
firm recruitment proved difficult and inter-
firm linkages were not forthcoming (Gibbs
and Deutz, 2007). In an attempt to find a new
direction for industrial ecology, Chertow
(2007: 21) argues that researchers and policy
makers should move away from ‘the dubious
mission of creating EIPs from scratch’ in
favour of uncovering pre-existing, self-
organizing symbioses. Using a rather different
metaphor, albeit still one drawn from nature,
she suggests that the latter can be seen
as kernels with the potential to expand if
they are nurtured and cultivated through
policy intervention and eventually helped
to ‘pop’. She identified similarities between
this approach and Porter’s (1998) work on
business clusters, their ‘roots’ and devel-
opment and prospects for ‘seeding’ such
clusters (Chertow, 2007). The use of nature
metaphors for growth and development is
apparent in economic development strat-
egies other than industrial ecology and EIPs
but, unlike industrial ecology, they are meta-
phors for the growth of an industry, not
tropes that indicate the desired form of the
industry.
Finally, following Thompson (1978),
conflating analogy and concept can lead to a
graveyard. But this is only one such dangerous
pathway for industrial ecology. Another
potential route is the separation of con-
cept from the lived experience of decision-
makers who transform theory into practice.
Designing EIPs based on mapping potential
synergies is not the same as building trust
among participants, overcoming regulatory
obstacles, devising a viable economic concept
and selecting a suitable location. While in-
dustrialists themselves may not engage in
an academic critique of the foundations of
industrial ecology, it appears that a lesson
from the new ecology, and particularly the
new nature described by Low (2002), is the
need for adaptability. In this sense, while an
analysis of the use of tropes is important, it
can offer only so much for the development
538 Progress in Human Geography 32(4)
of the industrial ecology and EIP concepts.
However, given the continued need to move
towards more sustainable forms of production
organization, discrediting industrial ecology
seems premature. Rather, in order to facilitate
the successful development of this concept, it
appears that there is a need to research how
current industrial location decisions are being
made, the level of knowledge and acceptance
of industrial ecology and the barriers to its
implementation from the perspective of
various decision-makers.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Roger Lee and the
anonymous referees for their helpful com-
ments on an earlier version of this paper. The
detailed comments of David Wadley and the
suggestions of Barrie Newell have influenced
our thinking on these issues and improved
the quality of our work. David Gibbs ac-
knowledges the support of the Economic
and Social Research Council (Grant number
R000239428). Any errors are, of course, our
responsibility.
Notes
1. But note that Daly also offers a critique of this
analogy.
2. Though for some very large firms, developing
linkages between different parts of the same
company may involve both a geographic spread
of actors and negotiations between separate
divisions.
3. Despite the large number of papers that cite
Kalundborg as the prime example of industrial
symbiosis in action, it relies upon non-renewable
fossil resources and produces CO 2 emissions,
neither of which are compatible with the principles
of industrial ecology (Korhonen, 2004).
4. See also Ron Martin’s and Peter Sunley’s (2007)
critique of Darwinian notions in evolutionary
economic geography.
5. Here, trust is closely associated with work on
‘untraded interdependencies’ where rules, routines
and networks and the close reciprocal relationships
that maintain these are essential to collaborative
inter-firm relations (Storper, 1997).
6. Roberts (2002) draws on the ideas of Cote and
Cohen-Rosenthal (1997) posted on a website –
this no longer exists at the address referenced by
Roberts (2002).
Downloaded from phg.sagepub.com at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia on January 9, 2016
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