If this is done successfully, "Companies at all stages of industrial processes, up-stream, midstream and downstream, can be linked together in a 'food chain.'" Chao Chih--cheng, general manager of environmental programs at the Industrial Technology Research Institute's Energy and Resources Laboratories, uses an ecological metaphor to describe how companies in an industry can be closely interlinked.
若是資源化做得好，其實「上中下游產業可以連結成食物鍊」，工業技術研究院能源與資源研究所環保計畫總主持人巢志成，用生態學來比喻產業界環環相扣的情形。