ABSTRACT
In the debate on how to achieve sustainable development, industry plays a paradoxical role. On the one hand, it is one of the major productive and wealth-creating sectors of society, contributing on average one-third of measured national income. This chapter details positive and negative aspects of industrialization, noting that both in high rates of resource consumption and in creation of pollution, much of manufacturing industry is unsustainable. It discusses the obstacles to achieving sustainable industrial development: the traditional view of environment as a “free good”, the pressure of competition, misdirected government policies, overestimates of the costs of prevention, financial short termism, the weak environmental capacity of small businesses, and so on. Maurice Strong, the secretary general of United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, has spoken of the need for an “eco-industrial revolution”. Its purpose would be to redefine the goals of industrialization and the tools and technologies used to achieve them.
