IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/bstrat/v17y2008i7p411-419.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Beyond eco‐efficiency: a resilience perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Jouni Korhonen
  • Thomas P. Seager

Abstract

Business strategy with regard to sustainability is currently dominated by an eco‐efficiency approach that seeks to simultaneously reduce costs and environmental impacts using tactics such as waste minimization or reuse, pollution prevention or technological improvement. However, in practice, eco‐efficiency optimization rarely results in improved diversity or adaptability and consequently may have perverse consequences to sustainability by eroding the resilience of production systems. This editorial article contrasts a resilience approach with an eco‐efficiency approach as they relate to strategic sustainable development. In some cases, the system attributes that are critically important to resilience – such as spare capacity, reserve resource stocks and redundancy – are in opposition to eco‐efficiency. Our most important insight is the realization that investments in what may seem counter to eco‐efficiency can nonetheless be important for sustainability. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Jouni Korhonen & Thomas P. Seager, 2008. "Beyond eco‐efficiency: a resilience perspective," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(7), pages 411-419, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:17:y:2008:i:7:p:411-419
    DOI: 10.1002/bse.635
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.635
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/bse.635?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin L. Weitzman, 2000. "Economic Profitability Versus Ecological Entropy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 237-263.
    2. Matutinovic, Igor, 2001. "The aspects and the role of diversity in socioeconomic systems: an evolutionary perspective," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 239-256, November.
    3. Templet, Paul H., 1999. "Energy, diversity and development in economic systems; an empirical analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 223-233, August.
    4. Edward P. Lazear, 2000. "Economic Imperialism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 99-146.
    5. Knud Sinding, 2000. "Environmental management beyond the boundaries of the firm: definitions and constraints," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(2), pages 79-91, March.
    6. Figge, Frank & Hahn, Tobias, 2004. "Sustainable Value Added--measuring corporate contributions to sustainability beyond eco-efficiency," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 173-187, February.
    7. Norton, Bryan & Costanza, Robert & Bishop, Richard C., 1998. "The evolution of preferences: Why 'sovereign' preferences may not lead to sustainable policies and what to do about it," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2-3), pages 193-211, February.
    8. Matutinovic, Igor, 2002. "Organizational patterns of economies: an ecological perspective," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 421-440, March.
    9. Gale, Fred P., 2000. "Economic specialization versus ecological diversification: the trade policy implications of taking the ecosystem approach seriously," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 285-292, September.
    10. Wackernagel, Mathis & Rees, William E., 1997. "Perceptual and structural barriers to investing in natural capital: Economics from an ecological footprint perspective," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 3-24, January.
    11. Edgar G. Hertwich, 2005. "Consumption and Industrial Ecology," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 9(1‐2), pages 1-6, January.
    12. Hukkinen, Janne, 2003. "From groundless universalism to grounded generalism: improving ecological economic indicators of human-environmental interaction," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 11-27, February.
    13. Ring, Irene, 1997. "Evolutionary strategies in environmental policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 237-249, December.
    14. Ayres, Robert U., 2008. "Sustainability economics: Where do we stand?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 281-310, September.
    15. R. J. Welford, 1998. "Editorial: Corporate environmental management, technology and sustainable development: postmodern perspectives and the need for a critical research agenda," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(1), pages 1-12, February.
    16. Frank Boons, 1998. "Caught in the web: the dual nature of networks and its consequences," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(4), pages 204-212, September.
    17. Edgar G. Hertwich, 2005. "Consumption and the Rebound Effect: An Industrial Ecology Perspective," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 9(1‐2), pages 85-98, January.
    18. Jouni Korhonen & Fredrik von Malmborg & Peter A. Strachan & John R. Ehrenfeld, 2004. "Management and policy aspects of industrial ecology: an emerging research agenda," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(5), pages 289-305, September.
    19. Berkhout, Peter H. G. & Muskens, Jos C. & W. Velthuijsen, Jan, 2000. "Defining the rebound effect," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(6-7), pages 425-432, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chatterjee, Abheek & Layton, Astrid, 2020. "Mimicking nature for resilient resource and infrastructure network design," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    2. Natalia Ciobanu & Ali Kerem Saysel, 2021. "Using social–ecological inventory and group model building for resilience assessment to climate change in a network governance setting: a case study from Ikel watershed in Moldova," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 1065-1085, January.
    3. PICIU, Gabriela-Cornelia, 2021. "A Comparative Analysis Of Sustainability Promoted By The Concepts: Circular Economy, Social Economy, Green Economy," Journal of Financial and Monetary Economics, Centre of Financial and Monetary Research "Victor Slavescu", vol. 9(1), pages 201-206, October.
    4. Jan Anton van Zanten & Rob van Tulder, 2021. "Improving companies' impacts on sustainable development: A nexus approach to the SDGS," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(8), pages 3703-3720, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Korhonen, Jouni & Snäkin, Juha-Pekka, 2015. "Quantifying the relationship of resilience and eco-efficiency in complex adaptive energy systems," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 83-92.
    2. Jouni Korhonen, 2008. "Reconsidering the Economics Logic of Ecological Modernization," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(6), pages 1331-1346, June.
    3. Korhonen, Jouni & Snakin, Juha-Pekka, 2005. "Analysing the evolution of industrial ecosystems: concepts and application," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 169-186, January.
    4. Korhonen, Jouni & Honkasalo, Antero & Seppälä, Jyri, 2018. "Circular Economy: The Concept and its Limitations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 37-46.
    5. Jouni Korhonen, 2002. "The dominant economics paradigm and corporate social responsibility," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 66-79, March.
    6. Jouni Korhonen & Fredrik von Malmborg & Peter A. Strachan & John R. Ehrenfeld, 2004. "Management and policy aspects of industrial ecology: an emerging research agenda," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(5), pages 289-305, September.
    7. Figge, Frank & Thorpe, Andrea Stevenson, 2019. "The symbiotic rebound effect in the circular economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 61-69.
    8. Jouni Korhonen & Birk Granberg, 2020. "Sweden Backcasting, Now?—Strategic Planning for Covid-19 Mitigation in a Liberal Democracy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-15, May.
    9. Frank Figge & Andrea Stevenson Thorpe & Siarhei Manzhynski, 2022. "Value creation and the circular economy: A tale of three externalities," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 26(5), pages 1690-1700, October.
    10. Dimitropoulos, John, 2007. "Energy productivity improvements and the rebound effect: An overview of the state of knowledge," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 6354-6363, December.
    11. Oikonomou, V. & Becchis, F. & Steg, L. & Russolillo, D., 2009. "Energy saving and energy efficiency concepts for policy making," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4787-4796, November.
    12. Estrella Trincado & Antonio Sánchez-Bayón & José María Vindel, 2021. "The European Union Green Deal: Clean Energy Wellbeing Opportunities and the Risk of the Jevons Paradox," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-23, July.
    13. Ouyang, Jinlong & Long, Enshen & Hokao, Kazunori, 2010. "Rebound effect in Chinese household energy efficiency and solution for mitigating it," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 5269-5276.
    14. Jaehn, Florian & Meissner, Finn, 2022. "The rebound effect in transportation," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    15. Belaïd, Fateh & Youssef, Adel Ben & Lazaric, Nathalie, 2020. "Scrutinizing the direct rebound effect for French households using quantile regression and data from an original survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    16. Jollands, Nigel, 2006. "Concepts of efficiency in ecological economics: Sisyphus and the decision maker," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 359-372, March.
    17. Mokhtarian, Patricia L., 2020. "Wenn die Telekommunikation den Verkehr so gut ersetzen kann, warum gibt es dann immer mehr Staus?," Forschungsberichte der ARL: Aufsätze, in: Reutter, Ulrike & Holz-Rau, Christian & Albrecht, Janna & Hülz, Martina (ed.), Wechselwirkungen von Mobilität und Raumentwicklung im Kontext gesellschaftlichen Wandels, volume 14, pages 167-195, ARL – Akademie für Raumentwicklung in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
    18. David Font Vivanco & René Kemp & Ester Voet & Reinout Heijungs, 2014. "Using LCA-based Decomposition Analysis to Study the Multidimensional Contribution of Technological Innovation to Environmental Pressures," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 18(3), pages 380-392, May.
    19. Galvin, Ray, 2020. "Who co-opted our energy efficiency gains? A sociology of macro-level rebound effects and US car makers," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    20. Rammel, Christian & van den Bergh, Jeroen C. J. M., 2003. "Evolutionary policies for sustainable development: adaptive flexibility and risk minimising," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2-3), pages 121-133, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:17:y:2008:i:7:p:411-419. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-0836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.