International Industrial Ecology Day 2021
Scale tool to enable sustainable implementation of biotechnology in the built environment
Abstract
Driven by environmental concerns, there is increasing research interest in using biotechnology in the construction and operation of the built environment. Although biotechnologies lend themselves well to enable a circular economy, there is still a knowledge gap between the emerging fields of biotechnology in the built environment and industrial ecology.The poster presents an analysis and proposes methods for co-design of transdisciplinary research with a low technology readiness level. In Industrial Ecology (IE), tools such as Material Flow Analysis (MFA) present relationships between materials and different application systems to facilitate a circular economy at various scales. However, MFA and other IE tools such as Input-Output analysis are often too advanced and require expert knowledge to be applied to emerging and small scale research. This research suggests a ‘scale tool’ to enable the mapping of potential scaling up strategies for research that lacks clear applications. The tool is developed and tested in a brainstorm session with an interdisciplinary group aiming at advancing the use of biotechnology in the built environment. This case study shows how the scale tool could be used to enable better communications between the different research fields and subsequently suggests the next steps towards circular solutions.
Author(s)
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Layla van Ellen | Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment |
| Nichi Patsorelli | Universiteit Utrecht |
| Ben Bridgens | Newcastle University |
| Neil Burford | Newcastle University |
| Oliver Heidrich | School of Engineering; Newcastle University |