L inkages of Sustainability, an edited volume of 25 chapters, intends to document and synthesize the research of nearly 50 contributors, mostly from developed countries, who have attempted to better frame the multiple dimensions of global Earth system sustainability. Known for its interest in basic theoretical research in fields such as biology, the Ernst Strüngmann Forum of the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies outlined the theme for this volume in 2006, and the forum's steering committee identified Thomas Graedel and Ester van der Voet (industrial ecologists and editors of this book) as focal participants. Other participants from various disciplines were then invited to Frankfurt for a weeklong meeting in 2008. A deliberate focus of this meeting was to more fully understand, from the angle of complex systems sustainability, the specific linkages among energy, water resources, nonrenewable resources (i.e., minerals), and renewable land resources (e.g., forests, croplands, ecosystem services, institutions, human and social capital).
Following an introduction by Graedel and Van der Voet (chapter 1), several background chapters offer the essence of “group discussion” for each of the book's four areas—land, minerals, water, and energy—with a summary chapter concluding each grouping. The editorial tandem ends the book with remarks on the emergent importance of better investigating potentially sustainable linkages among these resources. The brief introduction in chapter 1 defines the book's language and specifies the use of related middle-range models such as substance (or material) flow analysis, input-output analysis, trade-off evaluation, and lifecycle assessment (e.g., stocks, flows, rates). The background chapters of each resource area range in style from the data-rich but atheoretical overviews (chapters 2, 7, 23) to the theory-driven critical reflections on methods, concepts, or research strategies (chapters 3, 14, 21) to model-driven research articles (chapters 9, 16, 20) to more or less elaborated literature reviews for use in student textbooks (chapters 4, 8, 18) to opinion pieces (chapters 13, 19, 24).
Despite the range in style, most of the chapters in Linkages of Sustainability adopt the industrial ecology framework as an overarching, organizing principle, consistently referring to “stocks, flows, and prospects.” The summarization of land (chapter 5) stresses that, in the pursuit of “ideal land sustainability,” conventional approaches need to be reconceptualized to encompass trade-offs. A “land system” analysis would need a land accounting mechanism linked to remote sensing and GIS (global information system) techniques. It is envisioned that a renewable economy would need to make use of the “engineering and design of nature.” The summary of minerals (chapter 11), claiming an “unavoidable” need for primary resources, makes the point that future energy, water, and land requirements will become increasingly constraining factors for metal production as a result of the lower quality of metallic ore resources and mining at greater depths. “Scenarios that will move us toward sustainability” will need a much-improved “quantification of stocks and flows of minerals.” The final chapter in the discussion of water (chapter 17) proposes a sustainable water-systems management analysis, combining the “inextricably linked” components of water, energy, and land use through virtual water markets (as part of the wider global agricultural business). Supply-demand metrics are put forward for water provisioning purposes, and metrics are used to “analyze the effect of energy in purifying inflow water or water effluent.” Likewise, chapter 22, on energy, introduces various energy scenarios and proposes a data-driven methodology to define and measure relevant, quantitative links to land, water, and minerals. The concluding chapter (chapter 25) is based on the conviction that “a quantitative understanding of the linkages is very important for exploring pathways toward sustainable development,” stressing that “dramatically little” is known about constraints and limitations involving such linkages. Therefore, a future research agenda should consider the development of relational databases, methods, and scenarios.
Other than the first and last chapters, there is no need to follow the sequence of Linkages of Sustainability. Many cross-references help the reader find his or her way through both proven and assumed linkages among the resource areas—with two exceptions. In the section titled “Next Steps,” chapter 23 (on land use, agriculture, and climate change) and chapter 24 (on urban land use and transport) would be better positioned in the section on land. In addition, three appendixes interrupt what is basically a consistent outline; they could have been integrated into the text or even presented in the form of a table.
The original forum's pronounced determination is obvious: to facilitate an expert discussion on land, water, minerals, and energy under the purview of industrial ecology. (The rigid editorial work by Julia Lupp, the series editor, reminds me of the so-called Dahlem workshop model, used at conferences of the Free University of Berlin since 1974.) This common framework (and language) makes a readable prose for those who admire civil engineering language (not me). Having understood the message of the introduction, I found it irritating to see terms such as “quantification,” “optimization,” and “efficiency” colonizing every subsequent chapter. I find phrases such as “even before focusing on recycling, we must optimize the efficiency of mining” (p. 127) difficult to digest—recycle for what? optimize for whom?
Language indicates underlying motives, which I perceive to be serious shortcomings of an environmentally just discourse on sustainability. First, no joint effort was made to define and clarify “sustainability.” The editors widely fail to provide an introductory working definition; they simply posit that “sustainability is a systems problem” and “putting numbers and ranges on key individual resources related to sustainability is not enough” (p. 3). There is some indication of forest engineer thinking (in terms of moving from open to sustained, closed production-consumption systems), but this is not made explicit. Subsequently, various aspects of what are still contested concepts—such as Brundtland's idea of intergenerational equity (pp. 276 and 356) or Elkington's notion of a triple bottom line (pp. 218 and 356)—are haphazardly spread throughout the book. The minerals summary chapter, for example, promotes unabated resource extractivism in stating that “discovery, characterization, and quantification of rocks will be one of the major geological challenges to efforts for long-term sustainability of mineral supplies” (p. 127). And, in a self-defeating statement, the energy summary concludes, “perhaps the most challenging aspect of measuring sustainability is to develop an operational definition of sustainability itself” (p. 417).
Second, the idea of reductionism in achieving sustainability is avoided throughout the book. Instead, growth concepts are merged with notions of “bioeconomies” or “eco-efficient” variants of existing modes of production and consumption. The “defining issue” of the new millennium, as chapter 18 (on resources, reserves, and consumption of energy) puts it, is “providing adequate energy for a growing human population that aspires to a higher standard of living” (p. 323). On the next page, the authors acknowledge, “while the successions of fuels used in specific applications may be seen as increasingly efficient, the absolute quantities of energy expended have been rapidly rising” (p. 324). Typically, the water summary chapter admits that “consumer behavior raises social, cultural, and economic questions that are beyond the scope of this discussion” (p. 310).
In conclusion, it must be doubted whether industrial ecology can stretch the conceptual underpinnings of the biological sciences. I cannot imagine that readers who conceive ecosystems as inherently discontinuous, complex systems with perhaps an array of cascading interactions will greatly benefit from this book. Additionally, the even more complicated socioeco-logical relations are neither theorized nor included in the volume. Instead, a sort of eco-totalitarian “measurement regime” (p. 436) is proposed to address the human-environmental condition, framed predominantly as an issue of carrying capacity. There seems to be agreement across most chapters that this is best achieved in combination with global, investor-driven management solutions such as virtual water trade, carbon finance markets, and “ecosystem services markets” (p. 436). In the editors' concluding remarks, however, two different views are expressed, proposing a co-adaptive rather than a geoengineering approach. BioScience readers should perhaps start with this contradiction (p. 470), read the respective background information (chapter 3), turn to pages 462–463 (where the editors wrap up the synthesis chapters, also drawing conclusions for their own industrial ecology agenda), and then decide whether to dive into the details of the full volume.
