Making an Oxymoron into an Interdisciplinary Field: The Origins and Prospects for Industrial Ecology

The David O'Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise at the John Molson School of Business  presents Reid J. Lifset, Resident Fellow in Industrial Ecology and Associate Director of the Industrial Environmental Management Program at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University.

Date	Friday, February 15, 2013
Location	Concordia University MB Building, Room MB 6.240 1450 Guy Street (de Maisonneuve Blvd. West), Montreal, Quebec. View map.
Time	11 a.m. to noon

The field of industrial ecology emerged in the early 1990s as part of a search for frameworks for environmental science, policy and management that were more systems-oriented and more forward-looking. . The field, building on a metaphor of natural ecological phenomena to analyze and develop tools and prescriptions for industrial systems that are, for the most part, larger than a single firm has developed signature tools and concepts—life cycle assessment, material flow analysis, loop-closing and the circular economy, and industrial symbiosis—that have become part of the lexicon of environmental discourse and analysis. This talk will describe the origins of industrial ecology (including its oxymoronic name), its core elements and accomplishments and its prospects for the future.
	Reid J. Lifset Reid J. Lifset is Resident Fellow in industrial ecology and the Associate Director of the Industrial Environmental Management Program at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. He is the editor-in-chief and founder of the Journal of Industrial Ecology, an international, peer-reviewed bimonthly on industry and the environment, headquartered at and owned by Yale University and published by Wiley-Blackwell. His research focuses on the application of industrial ecology to novel problems and research areas, and the evolution of extended producer responsibility (EPR). He did his graduate work in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in management at Yale University.
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For more information, please contact:

Andrew Ross
David O’Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise
John Molson School of Business
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514-848-2424 ext. 5433