INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY AND ECO INDUSTRIAL PARKS.

AN INTRODUCTION

Faro, 1 April 2014

Maria Litido, ENEA

In nature there is little or no waste. In natural systems, organisms produce waste which becomes the residual products used in a continuous production and consumption system as it passes along the biological food and reproduction chain.

Industrial Ecology (IE): The name comes from the idea that the analogy of natural systems should be used as an aid in understanding how to design sustainable industrial systems(Robert Frosh and Nicholas E. Gallopoulos, 1989)

THE DOMAIN

2Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

http://www.lhwmp.org/home/BHW/industrial-ecology.aspx3

Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

Shift of industrial process• from linear (open loop)

systems, in which resource and capital investments move through the system to become waste

• to a closed loop system, where wastes can become inputs for new processes.

PRINCIPLES OF IE

• Opportunities to establish partnerships and engagement with communities and government in developing a more responsive attitude to sustainable industry practices;

• Locate industries strategically to optimise the capture and concentration of by-products, waste material flows and energy surplus for use by other industries;

• Co-locate industries that will benefit economically from the trade or exchange of waste and by-products;

• Opportunities to add value by applying waste and energy recovery practices in industrial systems;

• A catalyst to create synergies and an environment for fostering technological advancement in cleaner production, waste management and sustainable industry development;

• Provide appropriate ‘smart infrastructure’, to ensure the growth of eco-industries that support sustainable industry practices to maintain high levels of innovation;

• Support industry policies and incentives to encourage innovation, collaboration and commercialisation of new and improved product developments using materials, water and energy surplus to production; and

• Commitment to the benefit of industries that have sustainable development. 4Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

• micro-level (firms)• meso level (Eco Industrial Parks, EIP)• macro-level (regional and wider global networks of

manufacturing activity centres)

Industrial Ecology works best where there is a strong agglomeration of firms that have the capacity to utilise waste as a resource in production. Proximity generates externality savings and economies of scale, which reduce operational costs for companies sharing common suppliers or services.

ADVANTAGES OF IE

5Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

• Firms and organisations involved in area/district/cluster are able to achieve synergies and leverage economic advantage from shared access to information and knowledge networks, supplier and distribution chains, markets and marketing intelligence, special competencies, resources and support institutions available in a specific locality.

• A critical mass of waste through geographic concentration offers opportunities to encourage the co-location of firms: Industrial Ecology provides a vision and basis for understanding how improvements can be made to current production processes.

6Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

ADVANTAGES OF IE

“The goal of an EIP is to improve the economic performance of the participating companies while minimizing their environmental impacts. Components of this approach include: green design of park infrastructure and plants (new or retrofitted); cleaner production, pollution prevention; energy efficiency; and intercompany partnering. An EIP also seeks benefits for neighboring communities to assure that their net impact of its development is positive”.

Source: [1] in References

ECO INDUSTRIAL PARKS

7Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

http://www.engineering.dartmouth.edu/~d30345d/courses/engs37/EIPs.pdfSource: 8Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

Source:

9Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

Integrated Eco-Industry Parks (IEIPs) are specifically designed to encourage the development of industrial ecologies centred on industry clusters. They can range from a complex containing several core facilities comprising a power station and major chemical plant facility, as for example at Kalundborg EIP, to a simple cluster of industries, some of which make use of common user services such as steam or electricity from a co-generation facility.

View of the Kalundborg Eco-Industrial Park, Denmark.

For more details: see slides #17,18.

INTEGRATED EIP

10Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

Networked eco-industrial park system (NEIPS). They represent EIPs macro-level developments that have strategic links or alliances with other EIPs across metropolitan regions or even global network structures.

An integrated Eco-Industrial Park.Source: Roberts and Greenhalgh.

11Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

Planning plays a key role in encouraging new synergies and networks by locating activities in eco- and traditional industrial parks.

Its function will be to define a kind of strategic architecture or blueprint, which creates the right combinations of industries, infrastructure, technologies, skills, resources and legal frameworks to encourage industrial ecology to develop.

Planning systems need to be flexible, responsive to changes in industry and materials technology and need to provide incentives to encourage greater integration of development processes.

PLANNING OF EIP

12Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

Useful tools of IE in planning EIP:

• material and energy flow studies ("industrial metabolism");

• life-cycle planning, design and assessment;• design for the environment ("eco-design");• dematerialization and de-carbonization;• “Industrial symbiosis”;• product-oriented environmental policy;• eco-efficiency.

PLANNING OF EIP

13Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

http://www.engineering.dartmouth.edu/~d30345d/courses/engs37/EIPs.pdfSource: 14Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

http://www.engineering.dartmouth.edu/~d30345d/courses/engs37/EIPs.pdfSource: 15Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

WHAT IS INDUSTRIAL SYMBIOSIS?

It is a process whereby a waste product in one industry is turned into a resource for use in one or more other industries.

Typical characteristics of an effective symbiosis:• The participating industries must fit together, but be different.• The individual industry agreements are based on commercially sound principles.• Environmental improvements, resource conservation, and economic incentives go hand in hand.• The development of the symbiosis has been on a voluntary basis, but in close co-operation with the authorities.• Short physical distances between participating plants are a definite advantage.• Short “mental” distances are equally important.• Mutual management understanding and co-operative commitment is essential.• Effective operative communication between participants is required.• Significant side benefits are achieved in other areas such as safety and training.

16Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

Example of Industrial Symbiosis: waste steam from a waste incinerator (right) is piped to an ethanol plant (left) where it is used as in input to their production process.

Kalundborg Eco-Industrial Park is an industrial symbiosis network located in Kalundborg, Denmark, in which companies in the region collaborate to use each other's by-products and otherwise share resources. The park at Kalundborg is the first full realization of industrial symbiosis.

KALUNDBORG EIP

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Not originally planned for industrial symbiosis, its current state of waste heat and materials sharing developed over a period of 20 years.

Since 1972, the facilities in Kalundborg have been expanding and have been sharing a variety of materials and waste products, some for the purpose of industrial symbiosis and some out of necessity, for example, freshwater scarcity in the area has led to water reuse schemes.

http://www.pollutionissues.com/Ho-Li/Industrial-Ecology.htmlSource:

KALUNDBORG EIP

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OPEN CHALLENGES

Industrial Ecology is a concept often totally misunderstood:

• Eco-industrial development projects are often wrongly perceived as adding to industry costs and/or they cut across the conventional wisdom of the planning profession and community attitudes towards the management of waste.

• Adjacent residential communities raise concerns about the safety issues affecting the handling, storage and reprocessing of waste.

• Manufacturers have concerns about the dependence they may have on common user facilities and what happens if these fail or the prices for services provided become uncompetitive. 19

Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

Industrial Ecology offers a way forward.

It depends upon synergies and co-location of a wide range of secondary and tertiary economic activities.

It is inherently concerned with facilitating and creating industry clusters.

It also involves identifying and developing new systems, uses and technologies to encourage plants to use waste materials rather than discard them in landfills or other treatment facilities.

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LESSONS LEARNED

Industrial ecology will only succeed when mind sets are changed, and that means developing strategies to gain community and business acceptance for new approaches to the development of manufacturing areas. This is certainly the lesson learned.

CONCLUSION

21Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction

• Roberts, Brian (2004). "The application of industrial ecology principles and planning guidelines for the development of eco-industrial parks: an Australian case study", Journal of Cleaner Production 12 (2004).

• Gibbs, David; Deutz, Pauline (2005). "Implementing industrial ecology? Planning for Eco-industrial Parks in the USA". Geoforum 36, 452–464.

• Gibbs, David; Deutz, Pauline; Proctor, Amy (2005). "Industrial Ecology and Eco-industrial Development: A Potential Paradigm for Local and Regional Development?". Regional Studies, Vol. 39.2, pp. 171–183.

• Frosch, R.A.; Gallopoulos, N.E. (1989). "Strategies for Manufacturing". Scientific American 261 (3): 144–152.

• Allenby, Brad (2006). "The ontologies of industrial ecology". Progress in Industrial Ecology (Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.)

• J. Ehrenfeld and N. Gertler (1997), "Industrial Ecology in Practice. The Evolution of Interdependence at Kalundborg." Journal of Industrial Ecology 1.1: 67-79.

• Lowitt, Peter C (2008). "Devens Redevelopment: Emergence of a Successful Eco-Industrial Park in the United States“, Journal of Industrial Ecology .

REFERENCES

22Industrial ecology and eco industrial parks. An introduction