This focal area is centered on using principles of ecology to transform industry through several research and teaching themes. An overarching theme in this area pertains to accounting for resource and product flows. The focus of materials accounting can be on a single element, a single resource, or on multiple resources such as energy, water, and materials. Students and faculty apply this focus at different scales: from the facility level, to the inter-firm level, to a river basin or other regional site, and indeed globally. Other foci include technology and environment, energy and environmental systems, aligning corporate management and strategy with environmental improvement, as well as with co-operative strategies across firms. Geographically, faculty and students work on projects all over the world with additional focus in the Caribbean, Eastern and Western Europe, China, Japan, Hawaii, and Singapore. Course work in this focal area includes greening the industrial facility; industrial ecology; theory and practice of urban ecology; business concepts for environmental managers; energy systems analysis; and environmental management and strategy.

Faculty Thomas E. Graedel (Coordinator), Shimon C. Anisfeld, Marian R. Chertow, William Ellis, Daniel C. Esty, Gordon T. Geballe, Arnulf Grubler, Reid J. Lifset

Courtesy joint appointments Menachem Elimelech, William Mitch

Visiting faculty Helga Weisz

Associated center: Center for Industrial Ecology