Ecological trends of transformation of the industrial organization of the economy in the context of sustainable development

With the adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in January 2016, global guidelines for sustainable development appeared, which are applied in various sectors and national contexts, allowing public and private organizations to navigate and evaluate their activities, strategies and business results. However, it is not entirely clear where the advantages for business are in implementing these actions within the prevailing economic paradigm, which underscores the need for new analytical structures and tools. Industrial Ecology (PE) has been successfully used in engineering practice for decades and has been proposed as a method that can provide the concepts and methods needed to bridge the gap between traditional business practices and sustainable development. According to the definition of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, environmental efficiency «is achieved by providing competitively priced goods and services that meet human needs and ensure quality of life, with a gradual reduction in environmental impact and resource intensity throughout the life cycle to a level at least corresponding to the estimated carrying capacity of the Earth.» Over the past decade, several methods have been presented with indicators for reporting and measuring the environmental performance of companies and industrial regions. The main purpose of these methods is to provide information about environmental performance in relation to economic efficiency in a comprehensive, systematic and consistent manner over a period of time.