Journal of Industrial Ecology最新文献

Reiner, V., Malik, A., & Murray, J. (2025). Can global modern slavery be footprinted for corporate due diligence? A data review and analysis. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 29, 1077–1089. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.70037

The Global Estimates’ 49,570 million people in forced marriage or forced labor (produced by ILO, Walk Free, and IOM) are disaggregated by GSI across 160 countries (Walk Free, 2023a).

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Industrial symbiosis, where companies exchange byproducts as feedstock, is a key strategy for advancing circular economy principles. While more sustainable than their virgin counterparts, byproducts frequently fluctuate in quantity and quality because they are often low-value and low-priority for the generating firms, and this variability can be further exacerbated in sustainable production systems that integrate variable renewable energy such as wind and solar. Addressing these challenges is becoming increasingly critical as local interdependencies intensify to create more circular supply chains. Prior research has investigated the long-term resilience of such circular supply chains, especially to major supply chain disruptions. We expand on this prior research to address a pressing need to investigate the frequent short-term disruptions characteristic of byproducts in circular industrial systems. We develop and introduce two novel methods—variance flow analysis (VFA) and the variable byproduct technoeconomic investment model (VBTIM). VFA diagnoses how variance originates and propagates across interconnected firms using flow-based indicators, while the VBTIM supports firm-level investment decisions under uncertainty through a stochastic cost-minimization model. Applied to GreenLab Skive, a Danish eco-industrial park, these tools reveal that firms exhibit distinct roles in amplifying, diffusing, or generating variability depending on their infrastructure and process design. Sensitive operations can amplify fluctuations, while flexible or buffered firms can help stabilize networks, highlighting when coordination mechanisms, storage strategies, or targeted investments are needed to align firm-level efficiency with broader network resilience. Together, the VFA and VBTIM enable integrated planning for uncertainty in circular supply chains.

This study employs recent US Environmental Protection Agency off-site manufacturing wastewater disposal data and a socioenvironmental assessment tool for the United States to understand the characteristics of such disposal in terms of geography, major contributing sectors and pollutants, and environmental impacts. Environmental impact analyses of manufacturing are insufficient without encompassing the extended physical boundary of waste management. Our analysis reveals that off-site manufacturing wastewater disposal occurs disproportionately in populations residing in census tracts already negatively impacted by environmental hazards (impacted populations, or IPs) with 44% of transfers and 55% of Risk Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) Hazard going to these areas, compared to their national share of 37%. Disposal hazard is concentrated in a small number of populations, with a Gini coefficient of 0.99 for RSEI Hazard. Four manufacturing sub-sectors are significant generators: Chemicals, Fabricated Metals, Primary Metals, and Transportation Equipment, with Chemicals off-site wastewater disposal largely occurring in IPs. For individual contaminants, chromium compounds and chromium represent more than 85% of the hazard but less than 10% of transfers. We explore transfer distances and waste generation and disposal hotspots, finding that the Midwest hosts a disproportionate share of off-site wastewater disposal. Further, RSEI Hazard steeply rises at shorter distances and plateaus over distances >500 miles, revealing opportunities to reduce hazard by reducing 20–500-mile transfers. Our findings strongly support targeted mitigation strategies like process substitutions, control technologies, on-site recycling and treatment, and minimizing transfer distances. This article met the requirements for a gold-gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges.

Life cycle assessment of several common lithium-ion battery (LIB) cell designs is hindered by lack of cell-specific large-scale production data. This issue is further exacerbated by the fact that automotive manufacturers deploy diverse LIB cell types optimized to meet specific application demands through variations in chemistry, internal design, and format, posing significant challenges in assessing the environmental impacts of different cell types. To address this, this study proposes a parameterization methodology that links cell design parameters, such as electrode and casing area, and cell energy with production processes to investigate the influence of cell type on climate and resources impacts. The parameterization methodology is applied across 14 cell types employing graphite and nickel manganese cobalt oxide electrodes, varying in format, internal design, and nickel content. Results reveal substantial variability in energy demand during production when reported per cell, ranging from 1 to 30 kWh/cell for electricity and 2 to 50 MJ/cell for cooling. When reported per kWh_cell the variation is smaller, 61–63 kWh/kWh_cell for electricity and 107 MJ/kWh_cell for cooling. Impacts of power-optimized cells are higher than energy-optimized cells due to larger negative electrodes of the former. Cylindrical cells have lower impacts than prismatic cells owing to their superior volumetric efficiency. Higher volumetric efficiency of single- over four-jelly rolls in prismatic cells also yielded lower impacts. Thus, pointing to the importance of internal cell design when assessing environmental impacts. Finally, higher-nickel-content chemistries exhibit reduced climate and resource impacts due to a decreased reliance on cobalt which has higher impact during extraction and production.

China's manufacturing sector has experienced increasing robot adoption and capital-embodied technological progress, accompanied by massive energy consumption and carbon emissions. The robot adoption brings technological and environmental risks in the manufacturing sector. Based on the data of 28 manufacturing sub-sectors, this study uses the logarithmic mean Divisia index method to investigate the contributions of robot adoption, labor, capital, and energy factors to the changes in carbon emissions in China's manufacturing sector. Furthermore, we conduct the scenario analysis and Monte Carlo simulation to project the future trajectories of carbon emissions in China's manufacturing sector under the different scenarios until 2035. Results show that during 2006–2019, both scale effect and technical effect driven by robots contributed to carbon emission reduction. Robot scale was the dominant contributor to the carbon emission increase, followed by capital automation. On the contrary, the workforce structure and energy-robot structure played dominant roles in carbon emission reduction. Labor productivity, capital deepening, and the carbon intensity of energy exerted marginal effects on carbon emissions. During 2020–2035, carbon emissions will increase consistently from 62.4 million tons (Mt) to 72.6 and 228.2 Mt under the business-as-usual scenario and higher-emission scenario, respectively, while they will have obvious inflection points under other three scenarios. Carbon emissions will peak at 65.3 Mt in 2023 and have the largest mitigation potential in the lower-emission scenario. Finally, several policy suggestions are raised for China to build a manufacturing system with the coordinated development of intelligence and low carbon.

Anchoring plays a crucial role in fostering industrial symbiosis (IS). Understanding anchor firms’ motivations and driving policy conditions is essential for encouraging proactive participation in IS. Through a longitudinal case study of the Pingshuo Coal Gangue Power Plant's IS network (PSIS), which received the China Industry Award, we investigated how fluctuations in policy conditions influenced the anchor firm's motivation and, consequently, shaped the outcomes of IS development. The results showed that the PSIS was anchored by a coal gangue power plant and evolved in two phases. In Phase 1, the incentive for a value added tax reduction led to the anchor's deliberate IS orchestration. In Phase 2, the incentive was dismantled, environmental regulations became strict, and the energy system underwent structural changes; therefore, the primary motivations for anchoring shifted toward reducing waste disposal costs and seeking business opportunities through waste utilization. However, although motivations differed between phases, financial profits remained fundamental. The results of this study improve the understanding that policy changes alter anchor strategies and avenues to pursue financial profits. They also offer three policy implications: developing targeted incentives to initiate IS, cultivating a corporate strategic vision for waste utilization, and fostering an entrepreneurial spirit to promote proactive anchoring and participation in IS.

The ecosystem has long served as the core metaphor in industrial ecology, shaping numerous debates throughout the discipline's history. However, other ecological metaphors can be equally productive. Before Tansley's ecosystem concept became paradigmatic in ecology, the field's most influential framework was Frederic Clements’ climax theory, which described ecological succession as a process leading toward stable, mature states. This paper proposes an alternative perspective by drawing on Clementsian succession theory to introduce industrial climax ecology, a framework that reinterprets sustainability as the pursuit of stable, utopian industrial configurations.

Although Clementsian ecology has been largely superseded in ecological sciences by more mature views on succession, its foundational ideas remain relevant in conservation studies and, as argued here, can offer valuable insights for industrial ecology. The concept of industrial climax ecology provides a long-term perspective on the kinds of economic and industrial futures humanity might envision in an era of sustainability. While Clementsian terminology requires adaptation, its vocabulary offers a conceptual bridge between scholars in the natural and social sciences. Industrial climax represents an ideal to strive for, while various proclimaxes serve as cautionary markers, highlighting suboptimal arrangements and the pitfalls of utopian thinking.

By moving beyond the ecosystem metaphor and incorporating climax theory, this study calls for a historically informed, interdisciplinary approach to sustainability in industrial systems. The proposed framework encourages industrial ecologists to critically reassess how stability, resilience, and long-term development are conceptualized, offering a broader theoretical foundation for addressing complex environmental challenges.

The transition to a circular economy challenges existing regulatory frameworks, social norms, and belief systems: the dominant institutions. Moving from a linear to circular business model (CBM) is essential for sustainable business transformation. While CBMs have been widely studied in Europe, less is known about their emergence in the United States, where a national circular economy policy is still absent. This study explores how CBMs emerge in the United States, analyzing semi-structured interviews with companies and employing deductive thematic analysis alongside institutional work theory. First, we identify a variety of successful CBMs in the United States. Second, we present a framework of pathways for circular business innovation. Third, we present a “Circular Business Institutionalization Framework,” which bridges theories on institutional work and ecologies of business models. The frameworks offer insights into institutional leverage points and strategic positioning, with implications for guiding future sustainability transitions.

In the quest for sustainable development, corporate environmental responsibility (CER) decoupling—a phenomenon indicating divergence between an enterprise's proclaimed environmental responsibility and its actual environmental performance—poses a substantial obstacle to true ecological advancements. This paper empirically investigates the effect of digital transformation (DT) on CER decoupling among listed enterprises in China, employing a framework that merges the resource-based view with resource management perspectives. Our findings reveal that: (1) Higher levels of DT significantly reduce CER decoupling, thereby driving genuine green improvements in China. A series of rigorous robustness checks validate the results. (2) DT primarily reduces the CER decoupling through two channels: enhancing the interaction between enterprises and investors on online platforms and promoting green technology innovation. (3) Financial technology (Fintech) environment plays a crucial role in facilitating DT. In environments with advanced Fintech, DT yields a more pronounced reduction in CER decoupling. (4) The reduction of CER decoupling through DT also significantly improves corporate production efficiency, fostering high-quality corporate development. (5) Mature enterprises, non-state-owned enterprises, and enterprises in highly competitive industries derive greater benefits from DT's reduction effect on CER decoupling. This study highlights the potential of DT in promoting authentic green behaviors in enterprises and offers insights for policymakers and business leaders on leveraging digital strategies to enhance environmental integrity practices.