Designing Industrial Networks Using Ecological Food Web Metrics

Abstract

Biologically Inspired Design (biomimicry) and Industrial Ecology both look to natural systems to enhance the sustainability and performance of engineered products, systems and industries. Bioinspired design (BID) traditionally has focused on a unit operation and single product level. In contrast, this paper describes how principles of network organization derived from analysis of ecosystem properties can be applied to industrial system networks. Specifically, this paper examines the applicability of particular food web matrix properties as design rules for economically and biologically sustainable industrial networks, using an optimization model developed for a carpet recycling network. Carpet recycling network designs based on traditional cost and emissions based optimization are compared to designs obtained using optimizations based solely on ecological food web metrics. The analysis suggests that networks optimized using food web metrics also were superior from a traditional cost and emissions perspective; correlations between optimization using ecological metrics and traditional optimization ranged generally from 0.70 to 0.96, with flow-based metrics being superior to structural parameters. Four structural food parameters provided correlations nearly the same as that obtained using all structural parameters, but individual structural parameters provided much less satisfactory correlations. The analysis indicates that bioinspired design principles from ecosystems can lead to both environmentally and economically sustainable industrial resource networks, and represent guidelines for designing sustainable industry networks.

Industrial Sustainability: Reviewing the Past and Envisioning the Future

“…Other researchers are developing web-based semantic approaches where ontologies are used to model resources and "wastes" at participating companies before an algorithm then pairs participants [218,219]. Inspired by Industrial Ecology's overall endeavor to mimic natural systems, Layton et al have demonstrated the applicability of food web matrices for the creation of sustainable industry networks for the case of carpet recycling [220]. Similarly, Mathur et al quantify the environmental benefits of a hypothetical Eco-Industrial Park that uses EoL photovoltaic waste as feedstock [221].…”

Mimicking nature for resilient resource and infrastructure network design

“…ENA metrics that quantify information about system structure and qualities such as flow cycling, synergism, mutualism , etc. are calculated from [ T ] [54] , [57] , [58] , [59] . The ENA metric of interest here is ecological robustness, also known as the ecological fitness function – as will be used in this paper to avoid confusion with engineering robustness.…”

Nestedness of eco‐industrial networks: Exploring linkage distribution to promote sustainable industrial growth

“…The irksome bur inspired the now indispensable Velcro (Velcro BVBA, 2020). Ecosystems, which over time have developed into cyclical systems where “waste” and “resources” are one and the same (Jelinski, Graedel, Laudise, McCall, & Patel, 1992), have more recently inspired engineers and designers toward biologically preferred closed‐loop network configurations that are also desirable from a traditional perspective (Chatterjee & Layton, 2020; Dave & Layton, 2020; Layton, Bras, & Weissburg, 2016b; Layton, Reap, Bras, & Weissburg, 2012; Reap, 2009).…”