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The article presents abstracts of articles on industrial ecology, including "Progress Toward a Circular Economy in China: The Drivers (and Inhibitors) of Eco-Industrial Initiative," by John A. Matthews and Hao Tan, "Urban Metabolism in China: Achieving Dematerialization and Decarbonization in Suzhou," by Sai Liang and Tinzhu Zhang," and "An Ecological Economic Critique of the Use of Market Information in Life Cycle Assessment Research," by Nathan Pelletier and Peter Tyedmers.

This article proposes a linear programming model that is based on the wastewater treatment input-output model (WIO) to identify the lowest-emission choice among alternative feasible options for wastewater treatment; this model can be considered as an application of the waste input-output linear programming model (WIO-LP) to wastewater issues. Using the data of the Tokyo metropolitan WIO table, I apply this model to obtain the optimal wastewater treatment options under alternative scenarios. The Pareto frontiers of environmental loads are derived to show the trade-off relationships among various types of environmental load and the effect of the introduction of high-temperature incineration of dewatered sludge on the generation of environmental loads. The main conclusion of the study is that when all three types of environmental load (landfill level, global warming potential, and chemical oxygen demand) are considered, the introduction of high-temperature incineration causes the widening of the Pareto frontier of environmental loads and also causes it to move closer to the origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a method for determining the environmental load of Dutch private consumption. The method generates detailed information about consumption-related environmental impacts. The environmental load of households (direct) and production (indirect) was determined for 360 expenditure categories reported in the Dutch Expenditure Survey. The indirect environmental load was calculated with linked input-output tables covering worldwide production and trade. The environmental load per Euro turnover of industries was linked to consumer expenditures. With this method we can quantify several types of environmental load per expenditure category and per economic production region. It was found that food production, room heating, and car use are the most important elements in the environmental load of Dutch private consumption. The impacts taking place abroad were—with the exception of emission of greenhouse gases and road traffic noise—found to be larger than domestic impacts. Most land use was found to take place in developing (non-OECD) countries, whereas most emissions occur in industrialized (OECD) countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bringing about more sustainable consumption patterns is an important challenge for society and science. In this article the concept of household metabolism is applied to analyzing consumption patterns and to identifying possibilities for the development of sustainable household consumption patterns. Household metabolism is determined in terms of total energy requirements, including both direct and indirect energy requirements, using a hybrid method. This method enables us to evaluate various determinants of the environmental load of consumption consistently at several levels—the national level, the local level, and the household level. The average annual energy requirement of households varies considerably between the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Sweden, as well as within these countries. The average expenditure level per household explains a large part of the observed variations. Differences between these countries are also related to the efficiency of the production sectors and to the energy supply system. The consumption categories of food, transport, and recreation show the largest contributions to the environmental load. A comparison of consumer groups with different household characteristics shows remarkable differences in the division of spending over the consumption categories. Thus, analyses of different types of households are important for providing a basis for options to induce decreases of the environmental load of household consumption. At the city level, options for change are provided by an analysis of the city infrastructure, which determines a large part of the direct energy use by households (for transport and heating). At the national level, energy efficiency in production and in electricity generation is an important trigger for decreasing household energy requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]