A workshop: will review recent and current research regarding industrial transformation (IT) issues and present plans and priorities of the IT science plan of the International Human Dimensions (of Global Environmental Change) Programme (IHDP); will identify and assign priorities to regional and global research `core` projects for the programme; and will identify potential contributions to such projects by scientists from North America. A report will be prepared to the IHDP-IT Scientific Planning Committee which will, in turn, combine this input with those received from other regional workshops into working documents for consideration and action by an international IHDP-IT scientific conference in 1999. Areas of research to be addressed include: patterns over space and time, the organization and the technology of the production and consumption of goods and services, their material and energy transformations and associated environmental impacts, and the consequences of these impacts for societies and economies. Goals are to improve understanding of human drives and mechanisms that could enable transformation of industrial systems which decouples production and consumption from resource depletion and environmental degradation within appropriate technological, economic and institutional limits.
