Growing concerns about the environmental and ecological implications of industrial and other systems, as well as the impact of energy resource utilisation, are fostering increasing interest in environmental and ecological protection. Such understanding is crucial to advancing the quest for a cleaner environment and sustainability. New approaches to ecology and the environment that provide an engineering perspective and a scientific basis to activities are of particular interest.

The integration of the thermodynamic quantity exergy with the environment and ecology provides a novel approach that offers significant potential to improve environmental and ecological management. A brief summary is presented here of existing analysis techniques which integrate exergy with ecological and environmental factors.