Efficiency had emerged as our largest or second-largest source of energy and resources. It taps the knowledge of people, and embeds that knowledge into products and processes. To maximize profits in the new economy, business must maximize the creation and use of knowledge. That is why virtually every dominant institution of the industrial age is undergoing profound transformation. All to look less like the top-down, hierarchical machines of the industrial age, and more like the living systems of the new economy.
Ecosystems are the supreme learning organizations.
Using finite resources, they operate sustainably, according to simple principles that create extraordinary abundance. These principles of advanced productivity are not reserve to nature alone. Industrial Ecology applies the same principles to business, showing how to leverage small amounts of physical resources into tremendous creativity, productivity, and profit. Industrial Ecology is more than a corporate environmental program. It is a system that uses incentives and feedback loops to speed the pace by which companies adapt to changing conditions.