PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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Although often misinterpreted as a free market ideology, from its beginnings the
concept was also based on a political vision relying on active government intervention
within a social market economy, as well as on state subsidies for research and
development (see Murphy 2000:1). It therefore also has been called “a kind of green
Keynesianism” (Boehmer-Christiansen 1994, quoted in Massa and Andersen 2000b:339).
Not surprisingly, social democratic and green politicians across Europe are often strong
proponents of the approach.
Ecological modernization relies heavily on business and industry to develop
cleaner and integrated technologies that are more resource efficient and less polluting. 4
The European Union initiatives such as the Auto-Oil and Clean Air For Europe (CAFE)
programs or the Automotive Fuel Quality Directive (98/70) are prime examples of this
approach. Industrial development is seen as possibly in harmony with ecological
development. Not surprisingly, Joseph Huber, one of the founders of the concept, has
now become an active proponent of the somewhat newer term industrial ecology. 5
Employing biologically imbued rhetoric, Huber (2000:269) hereby basically attempts to
give the core concept of the original term of ecological modernization a new name:
Industrial ecology aims at an industrial metabolism that is consistent with nature’s
metabolism. The transformation of traditional industrial structures, which are often
environmentally unadapted [sic] to an ecologically modernized consistent industrial
4 The various billion Euro, multi-year EU research programs are a perfect testimony to the idea that
sustainability research should receive government support. Also note that the proponents of the famous
Factor 4 or Factor 10 approaches or of other eco-efficiency and eco-intelligence approaches typically
associated with Green Party politics also tend to self-describe their suggestions as “ecological
modernization.” However, several eco-efficiency scholars such as Erich von Weizsäcker or Wolfgang
Sachs also clearly reject current growth-oriented strategies and related expansionary infrastructure schemes,
and thus partially belong in the renunciation framework.
5 Industrial ecology, like its predecessor ecological modernization, is now quickly becoming not only a new
academic catchword, but also a new academic discipline. See, for example, the new home page of the
International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE) hosted at the Yale School of Forestry and
Environmental Studies (http://www.yale.edu/is4ie/). The Society held its inaugural meeting in Leiden, The
Netherlands, in November 2001. I interpret industrial ecology here as yet another a sub-concept of
ecological modernization.