There are three things that unite people who study or work with industrial ecology:

• First, they want to make industrial systems less harmful to the environment, often by making them function more like natural ecosystems, where resources circulate instead of being wasted.

• Secondly, they think in systems. Instead of zooming in on one isolated problem, they look at the bigger picture, where processes are connected and changes in one place affect many others. Where a mechanical engineer might focus on improving the efficiency of a single machine, an industrial ecologist would zoom out to understand how that machine fits into the entire production system, even beyond its factory, looking at overall questions of energy use, supply chains, and waste flows.

• Finally, they are often quantifying things, and with this we mean that they are trying to establish numbers to help answer questions such as “is this sustainable?” or “which option has the lowest environmental impacts?”. For them, numbers help compare choices and guide better decisions.

This last point is often where industrial ecologists differ from one another, because, depending on the exact question, different analytical approaches can be used. And just like in any technical field, they all have a 3-letter acronym…

So, what is inside the industrial ecologist’s toolbox? Let’s unpack it.