Abstract:The fifth international conference on industrial ecology (ISIE2009) was reviewed. To stimulate sustainable development, ISIE2009 set its main theme as “transitions toward sustainability” and selected 10 topics, such as sustainable resource management, industrial symbiosis, industrial ecology tools for sustainability, and industrial ecology in developing countries. Following the introduction of the basic data, three main research fields were reviewed: social mass metabolism, eco\|industrial development, and methodology and tools. The states\|of\|the\|arts of industrial ecology discipline and its community were summarized, and finally 4 suggestions were put forward to domestic academic circles, including empirical study, mass metabolism at national level, systems modeling and theoretical basis construction.