Beyond eco-efficiency: a resilience perspective

Business strategy with regard to sustainability is currently dominated by an eco‐efficiency approach that seeks to simultaneously reduce costs and environmental impacts using tactics such as waste minimization or reuse, pollution prevention or technological improvement. However, in practice, eco‐efficiency optimization rarely results in improved diversity or adaptability and consequently may have perverse consequences to sustainability by eroding the resilience of production systems. This editorial article contrasts a resilience approach with an eco‐efficiency approach as they relate to strategic sustainable development. In some cases, the system attributes that are critically important to resilience – such as spare capacity, reserve resource stocks and redundancy – are in opposition to eco‐efficiency. Our most important insight is the realization that investments in what may seem counter to eco‐efficiency can nonetheless be important for sustainability. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.