Municipalities and industrial ecology: reconsidering municipal environmental management

Abstract

In order for society to secure a healthy environment and reachsustainability, there is a need for reconsideration of municipalenvironmental management (MEM). Among other things, the potential rolesof a municipality in regionally oriented environmental management anddevelopment planning have to be further analysed. In this paper, MEM isconfronted with the concept of industrial ecology (IE). In particular,the role of a municipality in developing regional industrial ecology,and, vice versa, the role of regional industrial ecology in developingMEM, will be reflected upon. It is argued that a municipality, servingas an institutional anchor tenant, may provide the regional IE effortwith the needed institutional support. In return, regional IE seems tohave the potential to provide a basis for increased co-operation betweenpublic and private actors of a region as well as integration of regionalenvironmental and development issues. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.