The Role of Industrial Ecology in Addressing Sustainability Imperatives

The 2012 Gordon Research Conference on Industrial Ecology will examine key sustainability imperatives from various angles. Industrial Ecology is an interdisciplinary field of science that aims at a holistic understanding of the technosphere, ecosphere and the interactions between the two that result from the use of resources and generation of pollutants and wastes. The conference will explore how industrial ecology helps address some of the key interconnected questions that the planet is facing: (1) how do we feed the 9 billion people that will inhabit the earth by 2050?; (2) do we have sufficient supplies of affordable metals and minerals to support an ever more populous and wealthier world?; (3) how do we green rapidly industrializing nations?; (4) can we sustain economic growth?; (5) how can we envisage a sustainable future, and what are the roles of scenarios in industrial ecology research?; (6) what do we know about the consequences of policy intervention?; (7) how do we address the rebound effect when promoting efficiency? Finally, the last session of the conference will be devoted to an open discussion on how industrial ecology can best contribute to addressing these questions: what are the challenges for industrial ecology in dealing with these issues, and what are future research priorities? Invited speakers will present state-of-the-art research from various disciplines in order to provide unique insights and perspectives in approaching these questions. The conference affords an excellent opportunity to explore core sustainability challenges in greater depth with students and researchers at the forefront of their respective fields. Gordon Research Conferences (GRCs) are unique among scientific meetings for their prestige, quality of content, small size, diversity of participants, research—often still unpublished—at the frontiers of science, and a schedule optimized for extended discussion and informal interactions.