Industrial ecology study and research program at Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Abstract

This paper gives a brief presentation of the industrial ecology study and research programs at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). These programs have been running for a few years, and they have recently been evaluated. The revised program will be presented. A central topic within the framework of industrial ecology is eco-efficiency. Eco-efficiency should be a tool for measuring internal progress as well as a tool for communicating level of economic and environmental performance. Some of the research projects in the NTNU program deal with this concept. Effort has been put into clarifying the terminology of eco-efficiency, the definitions and the methodologies for selecting eco-efficiency indicators, and how they can be used for reporting purposes and as a tool for improvement measures. The paper presents examples of the use of indicators for eco-efficiency measures both for production sites and for products and value chains. The paper further gives an overview of upcoming international requirements to environmental reporting in the context of industrial ecology. Here we find different types of reporting initiatives, e.g. that eco-efficiency reports inform about economic performance in addition to the environmental performance while sustainability reports encompasses social, economic and environmental aspects, the "triple bottom line". Today we see a move from traditional environmental reporting to eco-efficiency reporting and sustainability reporting. For products, we see an international standardisation effort of environmental product declarations (EPDs). Among the research activities at the industrial ecology program at NTNU, is the search for eco-efficiency indicators that can be harmonised with the product declaration standards.