Future prospects of Industrial Ecology as a Set of Tools for Sustainable Development

From thought to action, ideas to implementation… that is the way to go. Industrial ecology as a set of tools and strategies to shape the world of the future and enable it to develop sustainably, needs to adjust and evolve over time. There is often a risk of having to rob Peter to pay Paul which must be minimized. The wheels-within-wheels nature of sustainable development needs to be appreciated and accepted in advance, even if one may agree that it would be difficult to please everyone equally. Something’s gotta give, as they say, for something else to stay.

Industrial ecology as a field of education and research is in its teens now, raring to go. In the days to come, even as it entrenches itself as a mature discipline in university campuses across the world, it is vital and extremely necessary to ensure that the links to society, government and industry are strengthened and researchers in this discipline do not become ivory-tower idealists dishing out theories ad infinitum, which do not have any relevance to ground realities.