Industrial Ecology uses an ecosystem metaphor and natural
analogy to study and improve the resource productivity and reduce
the environmental burden of industrial and consumer products and
their production and consumption systems (van Berkel, 2007b). It
applies the notion that ‘in nature nothing is being wasted’ as the
waste from one species becomes the food for another species, and
therefore industrial systems can also be studied in terms of
industrial food webs (that is the ‘ecosystem metaphor’ with closed
materials cycles, powered by solar radiation). It also seeks to mimic
in manufactured products and processes, the materials, processes
and forms that have proven to be efficient and resilient in nature,
such as for example the self cleaning surface of the Lotus flower
(that is the ‘natural analogy’).