IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/bstrat/v6y1997i3p146-152.html

Industrial ecology and some implications for rural SMEs

Author

Listed:
  • Otto Andersen

Abstract

In a project at Western Norway Research Institute, the concept of industrial ecology (IE) is used as a framework for environmental performance of small‐ and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Norway. The main goal of the project ‘Green SMEs’ is to identify existing and future environmental challenges for rural SMEs. The focus is on external demands coming from the surroundings of the individual businesses. Examples of issues being dealt with are industrial wastes becoming sources of raw materials for other industries, design and material choice for disassembly and reuse, development of industrial ecosystems, and industrial metabolism. This paper presents actual examples of industrial ecosystems and also some cases illustrating the problems small remotely located firms meet when the principles of IE are to be applied. These problems include the inability to participate in efficient industrial ecosystems (webs) with exchange of wastes to raw materials. Larger companies, often being more centrally located, have greater chances at identifying and attracting other businesses which they can co‒operate with in finding usage for their wastes. The ‘cluster’‒properties of efficient industrial ecosystems can therefore be a limiting factor in the development of such systems in rural areas. Small companies also have less opportunities to be proactive in establishing industrial ecosystems also merely due to the smaller scale of their operations. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Otto Andersen, 1997. "Industrial ecology and some implications for rural SMEs," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(3), pages 146-152, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:6:y:1997:i:3:p:146-152
    DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-0836(199707)6:33.0.CO;2-Z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-0836(199707)6:33.0.CO;2-Z
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/(SICI)1099-0836(199707)6:33.0.CO;2-Z?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. Jacqueline Cramer, 1996. "Experiences With Implementing Integrated Chain Management In Dutch Industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(1), pages 38-47, March.
    2. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    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. Burström, Thommie & Lahti, Tom & Parida, Vinit & Wincent, Joakim, 2024. "Industrial ecosystems: A systematic review, framework and research agenda," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    2. Peter Dobers & Rolf Wolff, 2000. "Competing with ‘soft’ issues – from managing the environment to sustainable business strategies," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(3), pages 143-150, May.
    3. Álvarez Gil, M. J. & Burgos Jiménez, J. & Céspedes Lorente, J. J., 2001. "An analysis of environmental management, organizational context and performance of Spanish hotels," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 457-471, December.
    4. Xiaowei Chen & Tianyu Zhang & Fu Jia, 2020. "Industry convergence as a strategy for achieving sustainable development of agricultural complex: The case of Sandun‐Lanli in China," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 2679-2694, September.
    5. Marian R. Chertow & Koichi S. Kanaoka & Jooyoung Park, 2021. "Tracking the diffusion of industrial symbiosis scholarship using bibliometrics: Comparing across Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(4), pages 913-931, August.
    6. Petr Scholz & Ivica Linderová & Kristýna Konečná, 2020. "Green Management Tools as a Way to Sustainable Behaviour in the Hotel Industry: Case Study from Czechia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-23, 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. Driessen, P.H., 2005. "Green product innovation strategy," Other publications TiSEM f14c1bcc-f1bf-4637-b4a6-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    2. Stefan Seuring, 2004. "Industrial ecology, life cycles, supply chains: differences and interrelations," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(5), pages 306-319, September.
    3. Kittiya Yongvanich & James Guthrie, 2006. "An extended performance reporting framework for social and environmental accounting," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 309-321, September.
    4. Peter Roberts, 2002. "The Scottish strategic and spatial context for sustainable development," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(3), pages 131-139.
    5. Maite Cubas‐Díaz & Miguel Ángel Martínez Sedano, 2018. "Measures for Sustainable Investment Decisions and Business Strategy – A Triple Bottom Line Approach," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 16-38, January.
    6. Mechthild Donner & Anne Verniquet & Jan Broeze & Katrin Kayser & Hugo de Vries, 2021. "Critical success and risk factors for circular business models valorising agricultural waste and by-products," Post-Print hal-03004851, HAL.
    7. Claire Woods & Roger Urwin, 2010. "Putting Sustainable Investing into Practice: A Governance Framework for Pension Funds," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 92(1), pages 1-19, April.
    8. Cornelis Leeuwen & Jos Frijns & Annemarie Wezel & Frans Ven, 2012. "City Blueprints: 24 Indicators to Assess the Sustainability of the Urban Water Cycle," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(8), pages 2177-2197, June.
    9. Pero, Margherita & Bottani, Eleonora & Bigliardi, Barbara, 2014. "Exploring Sustainability in Construction Supply Chains," Chapters from the Proceedings of the Hamburg International Conference of Logistics (HICL), in: Kersten, Wolfgang & Blecker, Thorsten & Ringle, Christian M. (ed.), Next Generation Supply Chains: Trends and Opportunities. Proceedings of the Hamburg International Conference of Logistics (HICL), Vol. 18, volume 18, pages 161-182, Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Institute of Business Logistics and General Management.
    10. Euston Quah, 2015. "Pursuing Economic Growth in Asia: The Environmental Challenge," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(10), pages 1487-1504, October.
    11. CHEN, Helen S.Y., 2020. "Designing Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains," OSF Preprints m82ar, Center for Open Science.
    12. Milazzo, M.F. & Spina, F. & Cavallaro, S. & Bart, J.C.J., 2013. "Sustainable soy biodiesel," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 806-852.
    13. Jim Butcher, 2006. "The United Nations International Year of Ecotourism: a critical analysis of development implications," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 6(2), pages 146-156, April.
    14. Matthias Fischer & Harald Heinrichs, 2018. "Dimensions, Dialectic, Discourse. Three Political Perspectives on the Sustainability of the German Healthcare System," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-22, July.
    15. Parvathi Jayaprakash & R. Radhakrishna Pillai, 2022. "The Role of ICT for Sustainable Development: A Cross-Country Analysis," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(1), pages 225-247, February.
    16. Denise Ravet, 2011. "Lean production: the link between supply chain and sustainable development in an international environment," Post-Print hal-00691666, HAL.
    17. Anna Beniermann & Martin Glos & Heike Schumacher & Ingo Fietze & Stephan Völker & Annette Upmeier zu Belzen, 2023. "‘Sleep Blindness’ in Science Education: How Sleep Health Literacy Can Serve as a Link between Health Education and Education for Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-22, August.
    18. Okechukwu Ukaga, 2014. "Gilbert Silvius, Ron Schipper, Julia Planko, Jasper van den Brink and Adri Kohler: Sustainability in project management," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 455-457, April.
    19. Sibilla Montanari & Evi Agostini & Denis Francesconi, 2023. "Are We Talking about Green Skills or Sustainability Competences? A Scoping Review Using Scientometric Analysis of Two Apparently Similar Topics in the Field of Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-25, September.
    20. Mara Del Baldo, 2012. "Corporate social responsibility and corporate governance in Italian SMEs: the experience of some “spirited businesses”," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 16(1), pages 1-36, February.

    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:6:y:1997:i:3:p:146-152. 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.