Restructuring Industry for Sustainable Development

Industry is one of the major productive and wealth-creating sectors of society yet it also is a major polluter. This essay queries how industry can remain economically and materially productive without degrading the environment or exacerbating growing global inequalities. Opportunities for large-scale changes in favor of an eco-industrial revolution are reviewed. The operational status quo practiced by industrial concerns must be challenged. Even though it is clear that most political and business leaders till do not take the sustainability imperative seriously governments should nonetheless avoid large-scale interventions of the past and concentrate on providing strategic direction overcoming sectional interests preventing market failures and stimulating those responsible for environmental problems to take action themselves.