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October 17, 2011
1
Complexity, the Holy Grail for Industrial Ecology?
G.P.J.DijkemaL. Basson
Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Energy and Industry [email protected]
Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey, United [email protected]
October 17, 2011 2
Industrial Ecology & Sustainability
• Industrial Ecology: system analysis and system accounting
• Tend to focus on eco-efficiency and/oreconomic, environmental and social impacts
• Little consideration of global cumulative effects
• Industrial Ecology at present• knowing i.s.o. “doing”,• analysis i.s.o. intervention
• May merely “reduce unsustainability” (Ehrenfeld, 2005)
October 17, 2011 3
More Recent Conceptions of Sustainability
• “Flourishing”• “The possibility that humans and other life
will flourish on Earth forever” (Ehrenfeld, 2007)
• “Adaptive resilience”• Sustain the planet’s capacity to adapt,
both ecological and socio-economic• Continue functioning through change = resilience
• “Adaptive resilience = resilience achievedthrough being adaptable in the face of change”(Hooker, 2007)
October 17, 2011 4
Industrial Ecology and Sustainability Revisited:Towards a “Deeper Industrial Ecology”*
• Required: a more positive vision of Sustainability and a more pro-active approach
• Flexibility and robustness: Shift from merely enabling “a future” to enabling ability to respond to “potential futures”
• To make a difference, IE requires a much better understanding and representation of• ecological and socio-economic systems• their interactions,
• and enable • potential interventions and their effects• extensive exploration of the design-space
(socio, economic, technological)
* Spiegelman 2003
October 17, 2011 5
Industrial Ecology and Sustainability Revisited: Towards a “Deeper Industrial Ecology”
• Need to extend the Industrial Ecology analogy from “resemblance thinking” (Phelan, 2001)
• To a deeper understanding by recognizing that both ecological and industrial systems arecomplex systems
• Complex systems theory provides a conceptual framework for Industrial Ecology
• Attendant approaches and tools provide powerful expanded analytical capacity and a “laboratory” for exploration.
October 17, 2011 6
Some Aspects of Complex Systems
• Quasi-stable states – systems operate between certain limits defined by positive and negative feedback
• Negative feedback – self-correcting mechanisms – tend towards stable condition
• Positive feedback – amplify deviation – tend to destabilise systems
• Between maximum and minimum limits – systems tend to be resilient
• Self-organising, holarchic, open (SOHO) systems – nested hierarchies of relationships between self-organising dissipative structures.
Kay and Schneider, 1994, 2007; Spiegelman 2003
October 17, 2011 7
Some Aspects of Complex Systems
• Bridges gap between individual and collective• Higher level system processes result form lower level interaction-
induced co-operative emergence• Lower-level system processes may be constrained or determined
by higher-level interactions • Multi-component systems evolve and adapt due to internal and
external dynamic interactions
• At issue is the need to understand the consequences of the combination of internal and external multi-level system-environment dynamics
Bourgine and Johnson, 2005)
October 17, 2011 8
Modelling Methodologies
Time
Leve
l of A
bstr
actio
n
Low
High
Mainly DiscreteMainly Continuous
Dynamic Systems (DS)• physical state variables• block diagrams• differential equations
Systems Dynamics (SD)• levels (aggregates)• stock and flow diagrams• feedback loops• differential equations
Based on Borshchev & Filippov (2004)
Agent Based Models (ABM)• active objects• individual behavioral rules• direct and indirect
interactions• environmental models
October 17, 2011 9
Socio-technical systems
Physical Network Actor Network
Socio-Technical Network
Physical Network Actor Network
The playing-fieldpolicy
marketsregulationbusinessculture
etc.
Ecologic Environment
Everything is connected; system is evolution driven by decisions
October 17, 2011 10
Interconnected material cyclesmulti-scale conversion systems
Sink
s
Sink
s
Sour
ces
Sou
rces
• Industrial transformation?
Requires a playing-field from which sustainable systems emerge!
Research:How to align policy/regulatory innovation and technological innovation?
October 17, 2011 11
Industrial network Development requires understanding of …• Infrastructure and Industry Systems
• Content and Structure• Technology & Innovation
• The System Environment• The economy, markets• The natural environment• Regulatory regimes
• Relevant Actors• Interests, Influences,
Instruments• Connected decision arenas
October 17, 2011 12
Industrial network Development requires understanding of …
… of Technology, Policy and Management
• Infrastructure and Industry Systems• Content and Structure• Technology & Innovation
• The System Environment• The economy, markets• The natural environment• Regulatory regimes
• Relevant Actors• Interests, Influences,
Instruments• Connected decision arenas
October 17, 2011
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Example: the Electricity Production Infrastructure
Explore the impact of a REGIME changes:
Does the introduction of CO2 Emission-Trading accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to renewables?
E.J.L. Chappin and G.P.J. DijkemaOctober 17, 2011
Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Energy and Industry [email protected]
IEEE Systems of Systems Engineering Conference, San Antonio, Tx, U.S.A. 2007
Industrial Network Evolution in a Dynamic world
October 17, 2011 15
Harness the Complexity?Timescale Long Medium Short Exchange Infrastructure Ownership Buy-sellLink Facilities Contracts Markets
Spatial scale Continent Region Locale Coordination Public Regime Policy/Regulations (Dis)incentives Private Multinational Market Supply-chain
October 17, 2011 16
Harness ComplexityScenario’s Behaviour Technology Links Dynamics 1st & 2nd Law hard/soft
October 17, 2011 17
Various types of decisionsdemand trends
investment decisioncapacity portfolio
Supply-demand balance
Markets
deliveryplant operation
October 17, 2011 18
Infrastructure systems, Inudustrial Networks, Clusters
Traditional requirement:reliability & longevity
Current requirements:flexibility & adaptability
must enable sustainability
Institutional reform
Internationalising
Environmental concerns
Infrastructures are large-scale, socio-technical systems
October 17, 2011 19
History AnimalsPlants
Parent Materials
SoilsClimateGeography
Ecology
• … encompasses many complexly interrelated concepts • …. and involves phenoma at different levels of
organisation (after Pianka, 1999)
October 17, 2011 20
.. A multidisciplinary “system-oriented” concept ..
Industrial Ecology
• Reflexive (I)• Analysis of past and present societies helps to understand their “collapse” or
chance of survival (sustainability)
• Prescriptive (I)• “industrial systems must mimic natural systems & achieve similar
characteristics”
October 17, 2011 21
Ecosystem Structure
Primaryproducers CarnivoresHerbivores
Decomposers
Energy &Materials
Respiration
Respiration
Omnivores
Interdependence/organisation
October 17, 2011 22
Infrastructure Ecology:Infra - in ‘the industrial system’
Infrastructures(Energy, Water)
& PrimaryProduction
(Base metal,refining,
chemicals)
ConsumersSupply-chains
InfrastructuresWaste
management(solid,
wastewater)
Energy &Materials
Waste materials
Emissions
Services sector and ORGovernment
Telecom, Internet,Transport, Health Care,
Education
Interdependence/organisation
October 17, 2011 23
Analogy: unclear / shifting subsystem boundaries
wastes
consumer goods
products
intermediates
resources
discarding
recovery
extractionprocessing
production
consumptiondisposal
Sustainability:
October 17, 2011 24
.. A multidisciplinary “system-oriented” concept ..
Industrial Ecology
• Reflexive (I)• Analysis of past and present societies helps to understand their “collapse” or chance of
survival (sustainability)
• Prescriptive (I)• “industrial systems must mimic natural systems & achieve similar characteristics”
• Descriptive (II)• Natural systems provide a rich source of models for design of man-made systems
• Explorative (II)• Use real and simulated “laboratories” to explore novel arrangements• Combination of quantitative & descriptive modelling• Look at the systems in a simulated environment.• Don’t design the social system, design the conditions wherein it can evolve
October 17, 2011 25
Descriptive/ReflexiveType I Industrial Ecology and Ecology
• Analogy in system structure• complex, layered, dynamic systems• boundary selection, allocation & decomposition problems• input-output modeling a thermometer of (emergent)
system characteristics
• Similar (desirable..) operation & performance characteristics• driven by solar energy only• closed material cycles• long-term equilibrium with their environment
October 17, 2011 26
Descriptive / ExploratoryType II Industrial Ecology and Evolutionary Ecology:
• Analogies in system dynamics or evolution:• evolution instead of design• agents-of-change: (natural) selection
• measure-of-success: • ‘differential reproductive success’ (species) rather
than ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ (individual)• analogy: innovativeness?
• ‘offspring activities, ensuring the ‘life’ of a company?
October 17, 2011 27
Evolutionary Ecology Modes of Competition beyond Industrial Symbiosis
• Pure competition: species A grows at the expense of B
• Symbiosis (Mutualism): A grows if B grows and v.v.
• Predator-prey relationship: A stimulates growth of B (predator), but growth of B negatively impacts A (prey)
• Parasitism and mimicry (A benefits & affects host B)
• Commensalism ( A benefits from unaffected host B
• Amensalism (A inhibits growth of B)
• (neutralism) (A does not influence B and vice-versa)
October 17, 2011 28
Complexity, Connections, Interfaces in…
• Content and Structure of Physical Systems• Technology & Innovation• Public & private decision arena’s• Economy & Financial engineering
• Distributed Organization (multi-actor)• Linkages between scales (Macro/Meso/Micro)• Changing roles and behavior
• … requires interdisciplinary approach
• … a new kind of engineer!• … and a new kind of policy-maker!!
October 17, 2011 29
Way forward for Industrial EcologyEvolve into the science and engineering of sustainability?
• Develop Type II IE – Descriptive / Explorative• ecologic vs. socio-technical systems:
• Understand similarities and differences at a fundamental level• Identify related preferred system characteristics (not thermometer, but
system structure and adaptation)• E.g. system structures that exhibit adaptive resilience
• address multi-dimension and interdisciplinary interfaces• Integrate multi-scale analysis and exploratory multi-paradigm modeling
• Action-oriented industrial ecology1
• Decision support for the actors that shape the regime• “Laboratories” for the exploration of Intervention strategies• Dynamic adaptive management rather than planning and optimisation•
Nikolic, Dijkema, van Dam, Action-Oriented Industrial Ecology: Understanding and Shaping Large-Scale Sociotechnical Systems (2007) (in press)
October 17, 2011
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Complexity, the Holy Grail for Industrial Ecology?
Discussion?
G.P.J.DijkemaL. Basson
