Calendar

"Sustainability by Design: A Role for Industrial Ecology"

John Ehrenfeld
Director Emeritus, MIT Technology, Business and Environment Program
Location: 1047 ERF
Date: November 5, 2003
Time: 4 pm

Technology, seen as the source of freedom from environmental and social rigors since the Enlightenment began, has shown a dark side that needs to be balanced against its powers for good. Sustainability, or better unsustainability, has emerged as the successor to environmental impact as a conscious recognition of the unintended consequences of our modern, industrial, technological mode of societal life. Sustainability is a new call for transformative social action rising all over the globe. But in looking for ways for transformative design, it is very important to adopt a meaning for sustainability that is not trapped in the same paradigm that has brought on the problems. I will discuss sustainability as the possibility that human and other life will flourish on the planet forever and explore its dimensions beyond the environment. Industrial ecology will be examined a way of [re-] designing technological systems to restore health to the naturalistic dimension.

Dr. Ehrenfeld is Executive Director of the recently formed International Society for Industrial Ecology. He retired in 2000 as the Director of the MIT Program on Technology, Business, and Environment, an interdisciplinary educational, research, and policy program. He continues to teach, do research, and write. His current projects focus on industrial ecology and sustainability. His research at MIT focused on how businesses manage environmental concerns, seeking models leading to organizational and technological changes to improve sustainable practices. In October 1999, the World Resources Institute honored him with a lifetime achievement award for his academic accomplishments in the field of business and environment. He received the Founders Award for Distinguished Service from the Academy of Management's Organization and Natural Environment Division in August 2000. He spent part of the1998-1999 academic year at the Technical University of Lisbon as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar and was Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Delft during the 2000-1 academic year. He is associate editor of the Journal of Industrial Ecology. He holds a B. S. and Sc. D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT, and is author or co-author of over 200 papers, books, reports, and other publications.