Our June 2026 Hero of Sustainability
Dr. Robert U. Ayres
By John A. “Skip” Laitner
This acknowledgement of Bob Ayres is based on a book chapter I was invited to write by his colleagues at INSEAD (Institut EuropĂ©en d’Administration des Affaires), one of the world’s most prestigious and largest graduate business schools with its main campus in Fontainebleau, France. The complete book should be published next year. Its working title is: “The fundamental works of Robert Ayres: Pioneer of industrial ecology and early prophet of the fundamental role of energy and materials in our economic system.” By World Scientific Press.
There are so many instances when humanity has thought one way about some aspect of the world, and then found another way of thinking about it. Centuries ago, we thought the Earth was at the center of the universe. But then we learned that the Earth orbits the Sun, and the Sun itself is only one small object within a very large universe (Gleiser 2024).
We used to think that DNA is the driving force in the development of life. Now, however, as Philip Ball noted in Scientific American, it is RNA, not DNA, that is the key to life (Ball 2025).
And consider the comment from New York Times science writer Eugene Linden: “For decades, most scientists saw climate change as a distant prospect. We now know that thinking was wrong” (Linden 2019). Indeed, we now know that climate change poses very real and immediate social and economic burdens.
What else might we be overlooking or misunderstanding in the ways that we think about energy, materials, and the environment?
One big, overlooked aspect might be the work of Dr. Robert U. (“Bob”) Ayres, a mathematical physicist and ecological economist. Bob was a pioneer of industrial ecology and early prophet of the fundamental role of energy and materials in our economic system.
Born in June 1939, Bob was a long-time colleague and collaborator who, alas, passed away in October 2023. But building on his long-time research we might better understand and act on his critical ideas of industrial metabolism – or what we might call “social metabolism” – important steps to realize the sustainability transition.
Bob was an Emeritus Professor at INSEAD (Institut EuropĂ©en d’Administration des Affaires), where he held the Novartis Chair in Management and the Environment. Applying thermodynamic principles to economic issues, he was a prominent figure in industrial ecology, ecological economics, and technology forecasting. His work was part of the inspiration for starting the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology.
Bob’s long-time research underscores the need for a healthier and more productive use of both energy and resources as they now impact our immediate social, environmental, and economic well-being. His most critical book, co-authored with Dr. Benjamin Warr in 2009, was The Economic Growth Engine: How Energy and Work Drive Material Prosperity, https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/the-economic-growth-engine-9781849804356.html. As we come together to rethink the inter-relationships of energy, water, labor, investment, and community well-being, we would do well to mine his funds of insight.
For more background on Bob’s research and career, see this well-written Wikipedia entry at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ayres_(scientist).