Assignment 1

1. What are your first impressions with the social science perspective on industrial ecology, and how do they relate to earlier experiences with the social sciences?

I believe that the social sciences play a major role within the field of industrial ecology. At this point in time nations run their economies on energy and products that pollute the environment and strengthen the greenhouse effect, while depleting valuable resources. This path towards development will lead to a dead end, sooner or later. The field of Industrial Ecology is concerned with getting the economy, or metabolism, of a nation on a sustainable path.

       But what is a nation? A nation without its society cannot be called a nation, a nation is its society. So in trying to get a nation on a sustainable path one should persuade the society to do so. This is where the social science has its massive role to play. All the tools to make a society sustainable are present, but if the tools aren’t used it just won’t happen.

       My background is in Industrial Design, where social sciences are used to market a certain product or service. Although this subject is only a small part of the program, I did learn how a certain group or society adopts a new product. And how this process can be speeded up. This could be used to make a society ‘adopt’ sustainability. Moreover I learned how products and/or services relate to the user, this knowledge can be used to think about ways to make a consumer consume in a more eco-friendly manner.

2. Choose your own industrial ecology-inspired puzzle and think up three alternative explanations for it.

An interesting industrial ecology puzzle for me is: Why do people keep eating loads of meat while they know it is bad for the environment?

Possible explanations:

1.      They don’t care.

2.       They find the taste of meat too good to give it up for the sake of the environment.

3.       They would like to switch to a more vegetarian diet but find it too expensive to eat meat-replacers. (Or: meat is simply too cheap)

4.       People derive their status from eating meat. Going vegetarian would make they seem like a softie or hippie.

5.       Individuals would like to switch to a vegetarian diet, but their environment refuses to do so. This could be a status issue, but could also be a practicality.

6.       People don’t see the consequences of their actions and so remain immune to arguments in favour of vegetarianism.

7.       People believe that eating meat is an essential part of their diet, and thus find their health more important than the environment.