Table Of ContentINNOVATION, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, MANAGEMENT SERIES
SMART INNOVATION SET
Volume 4
Circular Economy,
Industrial Ecology
and Short Supply Chain
Delphine Gallaud
Blandine Laperche
Circular Economy, Industrial Ecology and Short Supply Chain
Smart Innovation Set
coordinated by
Dimitri Uzunidis
Volume 4
Circular Economy,
Industrial Ecology and
Short Supply Chain
Delphine Gallaud
Blandine Laperche
First published 2016 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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ISBN 978-1-84821-879-6
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Chapter 1. Building Region-based Sustainable
Development: Vocabulary and Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1. Circular economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.1. The circular economy according to
the MacArthur Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.2. Experiments in circular economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1.3. Factual and scientific origins of circular economy . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.2. Industrial ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.2.1. Industrial ecology and sustainable development . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.2.2. Industrial metabolism and symbiosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.2.3. Experiments in industrial ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.3. Short supply chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
1.3.1. Origins of short food supply chains:
criticism of industrial “long” supply chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
1.3.2. Forms and functioning of short food supply chains . . . . . . . . . . 44
1.3.3. Short supply chains: generators of social innovation . . . . . . . . . 49
1.4. Industrial ecology, short supply chains and sustainable
regional development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
1.4.1. Links among these different concepts:
the creation of sustainable territories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
1.4.2. Proximity and innovative “milieu”:
key ingredients for sustainable regional development . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
1.4.3. An assessment of the regional impacts of
industrial ecology and short supply chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
vi Circular Economy, Industrial Ecology and Short Supply Chain
Chapter 2. Difficulties, Barriers and Stakes
in Transitioning Towards Sustainable Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.1. Barriers to the implementation of industrial
ecology and short supply chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
2.1.1. The case of industrial ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
2.1.2. The case of short food supply chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
2.2. How to overcome or reduce these
obstacles: the role of service activities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.2.1. Definition of service activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.2.2. What role do service activities have
in the implementation of industrial ecology
and short food supply chains? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
2.3. Challenges for public policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
2.3.1. The issue of governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
2.3.2. The issue of coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
2.3.3. What is the relevant territorial scale? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Preface
Circular economy, industrial ecology, short supply chains: all themes that
recur frequently in economic and political discourse, associated as they are
with the idea of a necessary and imminent change in modes of production
and consumption, to preserve resources and the planet on which we live.
Yet, their meaning and the potential for technological, organizational and
social innovation they carry remains vague. Can these concepts and new
experiences in production and consumption be considered as innovations,
new forms of organization and management of human activities? What is
their potential, in terms of boosting economic activity? Do they herald new
forms of labor organization and new social relationships? These are the
questions that gave rise to the need for this book.
Very quickly, the question of territory emerged as the central issue in our
reflections. Experiments in industrial ecology or the setting up of short
supply chains, are often conducted in a specific territory – a conurbation, a
city or a neighborhood; and it is interesting to consider the regional impacts
of these new experiments. Can they contribute to the creation or perenniality
of activities in these areas? Or to the creation of jobs? To the preservation of
resources? If so, how? What are the difficulties and obstacles that might
hinder such dynamics? What roles must public and private actors play to
accelerate existing processes? These are the questions we have tried to
answer in this book.
This book is the result of work carried out within the Research Network
on Innovation (http://2ri.eu), whose objective is threefold: to observe and
analyze processes of innovation; to build theories surrounding systems of
viii Circular Economy, Industrial Ecology and Short Supply Chain
innovation; and to empower research in economics and innovation
management. La Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris and the Institut
CDC pour la Recherche of the Groupe Caisse des Dépôts have also
contributed to the production of this book. We would like to thank Dimitri
Uzunidis, President of the Research Network on Innovation, for giving us
the opportunity to write this book. Thanks are also for our colleagues who
participated in research programs, a part of the results of which are discussed
in this book. They are, respectively. Antje Burmeister (Researcher, Ifsttar),
Fedoua Kasmi (PhD student, Clersé UMR 8019, ULCO) and Celine Merlin-
Brogniart (Associate Professor, Clersé UMR 8019, University of Lille 1) for
the research program conducted in Dunkirk on industrial ecology in 2014–
2015 (RRI, 2015)
Delphine GALLAUD
Blandine LAPERCHE
March 2016
