 Welcome
to Indigo Development, the first consulting company to apply
industrial ecology to the challenges of local and regional sustainable
development, beginning in 1993.
If your
challenge is responding to the current economic and financial crisis go
directly to Recovery Now!
In
these pages you can also learn about our related services: applying
industrial
ecology
(IE), planning eco-industrial parks (EIP), promoting sustainable
communities, supporting sustainable
agriculture, integrating regional action planning, and helping agencies
and businesses prepare for the impacts of climate change.
The
Indigo Development team works with clients committed to
achieving major system changes in their world.
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Since we first posed this question over a year
ago, the word "crisis" has become too real for families, communities,
and regions here in the US and around the world. We are in the midst of
a profound financial and economic crisis. A financial bubble is
deflating. A boom that has been growing most years since the 1980s has
suddenly burst. Although some see "green shoots", especially in the
financial markets, real unemployment is at least 17% and projected to
continue through 2010 or longer.
We need an integrative approach to
regional economic recovery now, as hundreds of companies and stores
close, as workers lose their jobs, as towns and cities fail to meet
their budgets. We can't just wait for Washington to fix things.
The Indigo team supports
regional and local leaders in designing solutions to the financial and
economic crisis at the regional level. This process builds upon our work in sustainable economic development,
integrative regional action planning, and eco-industrial development.
We believe that economic recovery will be strengthened by developing
green ventures and jobs, responding to climate change, and other
aspects of a high performance sustainable economy.
Go to Recovery Now! for
information on how we can work with you.
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Indigo Development
creates systems solutions to meet the complex of crises we face through
industrial ecology and integrative regional action planning:
- Indigo's Recovery to What? web page gathers resources
on a fully
sustainable economy as the necessary goal for recovery from the
recession that began in 2008
- One of the most
important
topics for regional and national planning is preparation for the
impacts of climate change. Indigo is now offering information and
services to help agencies and businesses plan for climate adaptation and
provides links to major documents in
this field.
- We believe
industrial ecology
is an ideal
framework for designing an effective transition to sustainable
agriculture. We have adapted the EIP concept to provide a support
system for a
sustainable
supply of food and fiber. Agro-eco-industrial parks (AEIP) support
farmers in learning and practicing sustainable farming. (See AEIP page.)
- The eco-industrial
park is a
central strategy in the Chinese Circular
Economy initiative,
to which we have contributed since its inception in 2002. Our paper on
Walter Stahel's work on product-life extension and the Service or Functional economy is important for
any country moving toward a more Circular Economy.
Indigo
Development is in the business of creating powerful solutions.
We do this by linking strength of vision to pragmatic understanding of
conditions on the ground, wherever we work. Industrial ecology and
systems practice are our foundation.
Briefly,
industrial
ecology is an interdisciplinary framework for
designing and operating industrial and other human systems as living
systems that are
interdependent with natural systems. We view public and private
services, urban design, and agriculture as fields that can benefit from
IE. Industrial ecology's primary goal is to balance environmental and
economic interests within emerging understanding of local and global
ecological constraints. To achieve this goal industrial ecologists must
also coordinate with the social dimension of sustainable development.
Industrial
Facilities in Dalian Development Zone, China
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