Preliminary Exploration On Industrial Ecology Issues

The conflicts of industry and environment issues have increasingly become a major factor restraining China's economic development. In the past, there was almost no substantial progress achieved with traditional treatment approach to waste discharge and pollution. Environmental protection technologies on end-of-pipe command and control can't radically get rid of wastes and even produce new sources of pollution, neither can government regulation relieve pollution produced by increasingly expanding industry activities. In essence, environmental crisis rooted in flaws of industrial organization, industrial structure, industrial policy and institutions, which revealed the double invalidation effects of market failure and government failure. However, the industrial economy study on industry and environment conflict issues lag behind comparatively to other science fields. Lack systematic and comprehensive theory study and integrated framework on clean production, ecological economy, recycle economy and industrial ecology. This paper adopted several methods including normal analysis, empirical analysis, comparative analysis, quantity analysis and case study. On the basis of concept analysis, this paper integrated industrial ecology and industrial economy, analyzed the relations between industrial ecology and industrial organization, structure, policy, legislation and institutions individually, aiming at exploring the sustainable development between industrial economic system and natural system.Literatures and practice on home and abroad revealed that the conflict between economic and environment is not an inevitable outcome of industrial activities, or there is no positive casual relations between industrial activities and environmental pollution. Both economy and environment can be improved simultaneously by transformation of industrial organization, structure and institutions. However, traditional theories on industrial organization focused on monopoly and competition issues, overlooked the inner relationships between organization and environment, therefore it could neither solve effectively ecological problems which industrial activities are facing nor overcome more and more resource scarce issues. Industrial Ecology suggests transforming traditional linear production organization into industrial symbiosis by recycling material and energy to realize industrial ecological clusters. Industrial structure concentrated on inter-industry ratios, high ranking evolution and input-output relations, but ignored the interchange, transmission, migration and circulation laws of material, energy and information between economy and environment. Industrial Ecology propose to pay close attention on structure adaptability to environment, promote structure regulate and optimization by environment coordinate. The neglect of economic system inter-action with environment resulted in the economic system imperfection and some functional defects. Constant grab from natural system without feedback mechanism to nature lead to environmental negative debt and natural capital decline, even made environmental productivity degraded or lose production abilities. Sustainable Development requires coordinate relations of natural-economic-social system and enhances the positive intensified feedback of industrial system to environment. Industrial ecology is a complex systematic engineering, which needs environmental legislation extending from end-of-pipe to pollution precaution and production control, from pollution and wastes processing transformed to every production chain links on material selection, production process technology, production design and consumption model. It is necessary to perfect adaptive industrial policy, industrial institutions and legislation to form the sustainable industrial ecological legislation system.This paper explored the mechanism of industrial ecology drive force. Adaptive government regulation and public involvement are driving forces to realize industrial ecology, the inner drive force of pursuing industrial symbiosis primarily sources from the most basic desire for profitable and competitive, meanwhile, government regulation and institutions limitation form the external drive force which promotes enterprises technology innovation and environment harmonious development. There also exists a third drive force from public and Greenpeace Organization which supervise or monitoring and restrains industrial pollution, the third force acts as a remedy for market failure and government failure. Intermediary organizations such as academic research groups and business associations play active and positive roles in the transforming process. All these forces function diversely in different parts of the world.This paper's innovations rely on: 1. enriched industrial economy theoretical system by integrating industrial ecology and industrial economy; 2. suggested interrelations among industrial ecology and industrial organization, structure and institutions, systematic analyze the source of conflict between economic and environment, explore the coordinate and sustainable development of natural-economy-social systems.