Since the prime object of Industrial Ecology is to optimize resource flows, the following strategies are possibly obvious:

Augmenting the availability of the resource, if possible, (e.g. water harvesting)

Eliminating the use of critical resources by changing technology, or, possibly, by relocating activities using them.

Reducing the use of such resources by using lighter materials which perform the same function, with at least the same performance parameters.

Recycling the wastes so that the same quantities of resources are made to perform their functions many times before discarded into the environment, thereby increasing the productivity of the resources.

Substituting with a resource whose efficiency is better and hence its use and the consequent flow of wastes to the environment is minimal.

Substituting the use of such a resource with one whose availability is “interminable” (at least by human standards), such as solar or wind energy.

The choice of a strategy would become obvious after an RFA or an LCA.

Although there are a multitude of strategy options, Industrial Symbiosis is one of the special strategies that are often talked about in Industrial Ecology.

Industrial Symbiosis

As the name suggests, the concept of Industrial Symbiosis emerges from the biological symbiotic process – where the waste of one activity feeds as the resource into another activity.

This concept could be adopted into traditional industrial activity in the development of Industrial Estates. This has given rise to the concept of Eco-Industrial Parks or Eco-Industrial Networks.

An Eco-Industrial Park is one where a number of industrial units are co-located in a park. The industries are so chosen that the waste from one industrial unit feeds into another in the park.

An extension of this concept is an Eco-Industrial Network, in which, industries that are not necessarily co-located share or exchange their wasted resources.

There are many Eco-Industrial Parks and Networks that have been developed in different parts of the world. This concept is gaining ground in the development of new industrial estates.

This analogy could be extended to economic activity in a slightly broader way. Since the aim is to optimize resources, some other strategies could be thought of. One is to have utility sharing, by which industries (or other activates) that are located nearby, pool and assign their common resources that might otherwise have been generated or supplied individually. For example, if there are many units in an industrial estate that require steam, only one steam generator is established that feeds all the units, assuming that there are economies of scale.

The second concept is that of cascading resources, where resources are made to perform more than one activity before their disposal into the environment. The easiest example is the use of treated sewage in gardening.

These concepts need not be restricted to industrial estates and the same concepts could be applied to other spheres of activity as well.

Design for Environment (DFE) 

Another strategy that is often talked about in Industrial Ecology is that of a Design for Environment or DFE. Now the concept of the 3 Rs has entered common parlance (Reduce, Re-use, Recycle). If this concept has to be taken to the level of a system, products and processes have to be so designed so that they perform the same function with a lower resource consumption through their entire life cycle, they are easy to re-use and are made of materials that can be recycled. At the stage of designing products and processes these can be factored in.