The Hawaiian Islands: Conceptualizing an Industrial Ecology Holarchic System
1
Center for Industrial Ecology, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
2
Graduate School of Energy and Environment (KU-KIST Green School), Korea University, Seoul 02841, Korea
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Sustainability 2020, 12(8), 3104; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12083104
Received: 24 February 2020 / Revised: 7 April 2020 / Accepted: 8 April 2020 / Published: 13 April 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Metabolism of Islands)
The Hawaiian Islands form a holarchic system with at least five nested layers (holons) at increasing spatial scales: from a single enterprise to cities, to individual islands, to the archipelago (the group of islands), and to the global resource base that connects them all. Each holonic layer operates individually but is also linked to holons at lower and higher levels by material input and output flows. An integrated study of the holarchic system allows us to explore the value of applying this concept to industrial ecology. We present examples from a multi-level material flow analysis combining a large quantity of material and energy flow data for Hawaii from the five holarchic levels. Our analysis demonstrates how a holarchic approach to the study of selected interacting systems can reveal features and linkages of their metabolism not otherwise apparent and can provide a novel basis for discovering material, energy, and societal connections.
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Keywords:
holarchy; holon; industrial ecology; material flow analysis; social metabolism
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MDPI and ACS Style
Chertow, M.R.; Graedel, T.E.; Kanaoka, K.S.; Park, J. The Hawaiian Islands: Conceptualizing an Industrial Ecology Holarchic System. Sustainability 2020, 12, 3104. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12083104
AMA Style
Chertow MR, Graedel TE, Kanaoka KS, Park J. The Hawaiian Islands: Conceptualizing an Industrial Ecology Holarchic System. Sustainability. 2020; 12(8):3104. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12083104
Chicago/Turabian StyleChertow, Marian R., Thomas E. Graedel, Koichi S. Kanaoka, and Jooyoung Park. 2020. "The Hawaiian Islands: Conceptualizing an Industrial Ecology Holarchic System" Sustainability 12, no. 8: 3104. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12083104
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