firm to look at systems. It is one of the more important expressions of the new ecological economics that sees the human economy as a subsystem of nature. It suggests that we not only need to acknowledge the limitations provided by natural systems, but also understand that our most productive strategies are usually those that imitate or mimic nature: what has been called biomimicry. IE has by no means made concerns with firm-level eco-efficiency or pollution pass, but has enriched these activities by highlighting new possibilities for cooperation and system renewal. Most of the practical influence of industrial ecology has been on the design of eco-industrial parks and networks. Inspired initially by the spontaneous emergence of the industrial park in Kalundborg Denmark in the late eighties (Tibbs, 1992), the discipline has helped in the more conscious creation of eco-industrial parks all over the developed world. Probably the most quoted definition of the Eco-industrial Park (EIP) comes from the (US) Presidents Council on Sustainable Development (1996): An Eco-Industrial Park is a community of businesses that cooperate with each other and with the local community to efficiently share resources (information, material, water, energy, infrastructure, and natural habitat), leading to economic gains, gains in environmental quality, and equitable enhancement of human resources for businesses and local community. Usually the EIPs are firms situated together to best use each others waste heat and process by-products, but besides that, there is a great deal of variety in the character of different EIPs. Some, like Burnside Park in Dartmouth NS, have emerged from the effort to create useful and profitable linkages between firms in an existing industrial park. Others have been consciously designed from the outset for various purposessocial,