Layton, A., B. Bras, and M. Weissburg. 2016. Industrial ecosystems and food webs: An expansion and update of existing data for eco‐industrial parks and understanding the ecological food webs they wish to mimic. Journal of Industrial Ecology 20(1): 85–98.

“Winners of the 2016 Graedel Prizes: The Journal of Industrial Ecology Best Paper Prizes” by Helge Brattebø, Reid Lifset

The Graedel Prizes were established to honor Professor Thomas Graedel, now emeritus from Yale University after an outstanding successful career as a researcher and pioneer in the field of industrial ecology (IE). The prizes are awarded to the best two papers published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology (JIE) every year; one paper written by a junior single author or first author (below the age of 36) and one paper written by a senior single author or first author.

“The winning papers, as well as the ones that were nominated but were not selected, demonstrate research of high scientific quality and relevance on a wide spectrum of topics in the field of industrial ecology.”

full article on the 2016 prize awards here

The two prize‐winning papers successfully competed among 12 nominated papers, out of which four were written by a junior author or junior first author. The paper by Ivanova and colleagues (2016), the winner in the junior author category, with a study on household consumption, was in a close race with the paper by Layton and colleagues (2016) offering a study on data and organization of eco‐industrial parks (EIPs) and food webs (FWs).

The second best paper in the junior author category by Layton and colleagues (2016) is an excellent paper with original and novel contributions to research methods for more fundamental understanding of the characteristics of EIPs and FW mimicry. In particular, the study offers significant improvements in systematic analysis of metrics and data processing for a large data set of EIPs and FWs. The paper analyzes to what extent the IE metaphor is actually implemented in EIPs, and FW structures are compared with EIP structures. The paper concludes that EIPs are less complex that their ecological counterparts, and that EIPs still have a long way to go to meet the resilient and efficient properties of natural systems. This is a valuable contribution to IE research: It improves the scientific links between ecology methods and IE methods and offers a basis for better ecosystem mimicry in circular economy initiatives. The study represents great value for the IE community and increases our understanding of the extent our metaphor actually holds. It is also valuable in terms of the data provided and analysis made of the current EIP structures. The paper is well written with proper illustrations, an excellent structure, layout and language, and with extensive data and documentation including supporting information.

full article on the 2016 prize awards here