1 1. Introducing an international perspective on industrial ecology Pauline Deutz and Donald I. Lyons The aim of this book is to promote a debate about the relationship between industrial ecology (IE), as a business, community and academic endeavour, and the places in the world where examples of industrial ecology can be found. We present analyses of IE demonstrating its context and variability on a global scale. After 25 years of activity, industrial ecology studies and practices can be found across the globe. The commonalities, associated constraints and opportunities are widely discussed in the burgeoning literature. An additional commonality, seldom explored, is that these examples are all happening somewhere. The significance of location for the IE activity attempted, the outcome of that attempt, and the transferability of lessons to other locations are rarely considered. Furthermore, studies are conducted from somewhere, not necessarily the same place where the IE activities are rooted. Originally inspired by a session on IE and geography at the International Sustainable Development Research Society conference in Hong Kong in 2010, we have expanded the range of contributions to the book to provide a genuinely global reach in terms of both case studies and authorship. This book provides contextualised overviews of the current state of IE in spe- cific countries or continents, it explores case studies of different types of IE, in a variety of settings (including developed and developing countries), and provides comparisons between different national contexts. Authors draw on several methodological and theoretical frameworks, offering approaches to comparative work, and contributing to the theoretical understanding of the field. INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY TODAY IE is both an academic field of research and a practice that rests on the assumption that the impact of society on the environment can be reduced by drawing on lessons from natural ecosystems. It concerns the flows of Pauline Deutz and Donald I. Lyons - 9781781003572 Downloaded from Elgar Online at 06/01/2020 02:24:11AM via free access