Term describing a loosely cohered set of values and ideas that aim to apply the insights of ecology to the industrial world.In the words of Robert Frosch, formerly of NASA and GM:
"In an industrial ecosystem... the consumption of energy and materials is optimized, waste generation is minimized, and the effluents of one process...serve as the raw materials for another process. The industrial ecosystem would function as an analogue of ecological systems."
The old industrial paradigm was linear, but now a systems theory approach aims to create cyclic networks of manufacturing. The systems theory owes a lot to Jay W. Forrester of MIT. Some commonly used terms in the field are : industrial metabolism, life cycle assessment, ecobalances or design for environment. The Kalundborg Park in Denmark is an atempt to show some of these ideas in practice.