While applications of circular economy principles are becoming more common in startups or small-scale projects, it can still be hard to visualize what large-scale industrial projects organized around circular principles may look like. This, however, does not mean they do not exist: for more than 40 years, some companies and cities have been pioneering “industrial symbiosis”, an approach based on business cooperation to limit waste and resource extraction.
Rethinking industrial relations to reduce impact
From the outside, the Kalundborg industrial park in Denmark looks like any other. Behind the scenes, however, the 14 neighboring companies have surprisingly tight business relationships. At the center of the network, the local power station sells excess steam—that would otherwise be wasted—to the oil refinery, the fish farm, the pharmaceutical company, and local residents. The plant’s waste ash is sent to a cement factory, and a waste byproduct called gypsum is used by a local construction company. In turn, the plant uses wastewater from the oil refinery, while the fish farm and the pharmaceutical company sell their waste as fertilizer to local farms. Interestingly, all these exchanges were first set up individually for economic reasons, but together they form a circular network of resource and energy reuse which has prevented thousands of tons of waste, water withdrawal and greenhouse gas emissions. Today, they are a compelling example of the importance of local cooperation between businesses to reach sustainability objectives.
The Kalundborg industrial park
Kalundborg was one of the first examples of industrial symbiosis, a circular model in which companies engage in a network of mutually beneficial material exchanges, often at a local level, to combine economic and environmental advantages. Companies and governments throughout the world have attempted to replicate the model in eco-industrial parks, enriching it with deeper levels of planning, public-private cooperation, or ecosystem restoration. These initiatives have had varying levels of success, not least because they require levels of trust, information and skill sharing between stakeholders that can be hard to achieve. Once established, however, the ecological advantages of industrial symbiosis are clear; so, could this model of industrial production be the answer for a sustainable future?
Learning to limit industrial production
Industrial symbiosis is an example of industrial ecology, which develops the idea that industries, from resource extraction to waste, can be compared to natural living ecosystems, and managed as such. In such ecosystems, energy and material flows need to be optimized, just like in nature where every resource is recycled. This appears central to building a 2°C compatible world, as energy and material efficiency are listed by the IPCC as two of the most powerful strategies to mitigate the impact of industries on the climate.
However, desirable futures must also be built by changing our modes of production and consumption away from the abundance, massification and globalization of products enabled by industrial production. Local, small-scale production and sober consumption should also become central to a sustainable world, and incremental progress like industrial symbiosis must not eclipse the need for radical shifts. In other words, “greening” industries is necessary, but not enough, and should not delay a broader questioning of our ways of living. The fact that one key actor of the Kalundborg network is an oil refinery perhaps best exemplifies this issue: reusing waste from a refinery does not change the fact that it is a refinery, connected to large industrial factories.
So can Kalundborg save the world? Probably not. But it certainly represents an example of more sustainable industrial practices, pushing companies to rethink the efficiency of their processes, their relationship with local stakeholders, and their impact on the finite environment. In parallel, we must keep challenging today’s industrial models of production and consumption.
- Thibaud Auzière, Press Associate
Sources and further readings
You can visualize all the exchanges in the Kalundborg network here: http://www.symbiosis.dk/en/partnerne-bag/
https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-4/ ; Section 4.3.4
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