UNIDO Green Industry Forum
Shanghai Expo, Monday 24 May 2010
Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production (RECP) in Industrial Parks:
the case for Eco-Industrial Parks (EIPs)
Mr Eduard CLARENCE–SMITH (UNIDO Representative to China) welcomed participants to the forum and positioned UNIDO’s Green Industry initiative in the context of the Expo’s theme “Better City – Better Life”. Industries generate jobs and wealth which fosters the city’s economy to strive. Without consideration for the environment, however, industries do compromise the quality of life in cities with their industrial wastes and pollutants.
The environmental management of industrial parks is of particular relevance, as these concentrate workers, their families and communities, in close proximity of concentrations of industries. The forum was designed to explore how green industry initiatives in industrial parks can be initiated and contribute to better city and better life for its inhabitants.
Dr Rene VAN BERKEL (Chief, Cleaner and Sustainable Production Unit, UNIDO, Vienna): Global Perspective on Concepts, Practices and Applications for Eco-Industrial Parks (EIPs).
Green Industry, as promoted by UNIDO, is a response to the interrelated challenges businesses and societies face globally, including: job creation; climate change; resource use; competitiveness and productivity; and pollution and waste. The ultimate aim is to delink economic growth from increase in resource use and environmental impact, or, to put it simply: deliver more quality of life and better health with less resources and waste.
Green Industry is a two-pronged agenda for achieving this. Firstly, it aims to reduce resource consumption and environmental impact of all industries (or greening of industry, in particular through Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production). Secondly, it sets out to develop a vibrant and innovative supply of environmental goods and services, from green industries, that deliver for example waste management and recycling services, develop and market clean technologies and renewable energy systems and safe chemicals.
The emerging discipline to underpin the Green Industry endeavour is known as Industrial Ecology, which takes a systems’ view to study the connectedness of the economy, the environment and technology. In doing so, Industrial Ecology places industrial production and consumption systems in the context of natural systems, including the provision of natural resources and ecosystem services that ultimately support life on planet Earth. One iconic application is referred to as Industrial Symbiosis, which seeks to achieve competitive advantage and environmental benefit through the use of previously discarded waste (either as a material, water, or energy stream) from one company by another company in its close geographic proximity as an alternative input.
Over the past two decades, a growing number of practical examples have been documented that demonstrate substantive economic and environmental benefits from industrial symbiosis. Kalundborg (Denmark) is generally credited as the first practical demonstration. In this relatively small town, the symbiosis is anchored in a complex water and heat exchange system between the oil refinery, power station and pharmaceutical plant, complemented by several recycling industries based on main by-products streams of these three core industries, i.e. gypsum (for production of wall board), yeast slurry (for agricultural use), fly ash (for building materials) and sulphur (for fertiliser production).
The annual savings are estimated to be in excess of 3.5 million USD. Kawasaki is the iconic example of the Japanese Eco-Town programme which supported industrial zones to develop new recycling industries around locally available industrial and urban waste streams. In the case of Kawasaki some 550,000 ton waste is annually diverted primarily through innovative recycling of blast furnace slag and plastic and paper waste, with estimated annual savings of 130 million USD. In Kwinana (Australia), synergies developed between and around the main resource processing industries, including oil, nickel and alumina refineries, cement, lime and iron production, and allied chemical industries. A total of 47 symbiotic projects have been documented involving 22 companies.
The available policy options for fostering industrial symbiosis include physical planning and environmental policy; recycling legislation; and waste brokerage services. While each provides incentives for good environmental practices in industrial parks, none of these has turned out to be specifically effective towards realization of industrial symbiosis. In moving forward, it is therefore important to realise that Eco-Industrial Parks entail more than just industrial symbiosis. Other options for EIPs include for example industrial zoning, best practice sharing (cleaner production, energy efficiency, chemicals management, etc.), collective risk management and emergency preparedness and response.
Further reading: From Waste to Profit (English Version/Chinese Version)
Prof Hung-Suck PARK (Director, Ulsan Eco-Industrial Park Centre, and Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Ulsan, Republic of Korea): Status of Eco-Industrial Parks in Republic of Korea
Industrial estates have provided the powerhouse for industry development in the Republic of Korea, with currently 815 industrial complexes being home to 60% of manufacturing industries, producing 75% of exports and providing 47% of total employment. Under its Act to Promote Environment Friendly Industrial Structure (1995), the government has adopted a master plan for Eco-Industrial Parks (EIP).
The first five year phase (2005-2009) included pilot projects in five different industrial parks, in terms of industry composition, age and location. In total 111 symbiotic projects were identified that would involve 488 companies. 10 projects have so far been realised and achieved annual savings totalling 45 million USD and a greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction of nearly 200,000 ton CO2-eq. The projected total savings from all currently identified symbiosis projects would be 287 million USD with total GHG emission reduction over 75 million ton CO2-eq.
The current phase foresees extension and scaling-up of the experiences from the present 5 to 8 industrial parks and continuation of feasibility studies for projects already identified in the pilot EIPs from the first phase.
One of the EIP pilot projects was implemented in Ulsan, one of the oldest industrial zones, with traditional strength in metallurgical, chemical and heavy metal products industries. The symbiotic projects developed and implemented during the pilot phase, included:
• Integration of company steam networks of Sung-am MWIF and Hyosung that maximises energy recovery from company’s incinerators, achieving economic benefit of 7.1 million USD, environmental benefit of 55,000 ton GHG emission reduction and enabling the establishment of new factory with a potential to create 140 new jobs
• Steam production from waste heat recovery at Yoosung Corporation and supply of steam to Hankuk paper mill, required investment of 0.85 million USD to achieve 2.32 million USD annual savings and reduce GHG emissions by nearly 15,000 tons annually
• Supply of excess steam and process-CO2 from Korea Zinc to Hankuk paper, achieving annual savings worth 6.6 million USD and achieving GHG emission reductions equalling nearly 65,000 ton per annum
A total of 39 potential synergies was identified and analysed during the pilot phase in Ulsan. 2.4 million USD has been spent on Research and Development. The estimated total investment volume for the 16 options considered feasible mounts up to 53 million USD, with projected annual savings well in excess of 60 million USD.
The experience in Ulsan and the other four pilot EIPs has confirmed that industrial symbiosis can be beneficially realized in the Republic of Korea. It did turn out to be relatively straightforward to identify potential linkages, through the combination of innovation workshops with companies and expert mapping of company level material, water and energy in- and outputs. However the further development and implementation remains a challenging task and requires a number of elements to come together, including technology assessment and engineering design, development of appropriate business models for profitable operation to all parties involved, aligning corporate priorities, securing financing, and addressing environmental and other policy and legislation.
Dr DUAN Ning (Director, China National Cleaner Production Centre, Beijing, China): Government Policy and Strategy for Eco-Industrial Parks (EIPs) in China
The Chinese EIP experience goes back to 1999 when the first example of an eco-industrial development was documented for an integrated sugar mill and pulp paper mill in Guigang. Since then existing synergistic linkages in other industry complexes have been documented and further EIPs planned and implemented in many Chinese provinces.
In order to foster and support the development of EIPs in China, the Chinese government issued in 2003 a guidance document on EIP Planning. A distinction was made in three types of EIPs. The first type refers to one anchor industry, with an agglomerate of spin off industries developed to utilise the by-products from the anchor industry. An anchor industry could be a sugar mill, with as spin off for example a distillery to produce spirits from the molasses and a paper mill for papermaking from the bagasse. T
here would be one major node in the EIP with a number of spokes as the spin off industries. The second type of EIPs refers to regional multi-industry parks, where multiple by-products are exchanged in multiple directions between multiple industries. This would for example apply if in one industrial park multiple petro-chemical and chemical companies, a power plant and cement plant would exchange several by-products, e.g. refinery gas and waste organic materials as auxiliary fuel for cement making, waste heat recovery from power plant for use in chemical companies and use of coal ash as auxiliary cement material. The third type of EIP covers resource-recycling zones, where multiple recycling companies co-locate, for example waste incinerator, plastics and paper recycling plant, E-waste recycling plant and composting plant.
Industrial parks can be officially recognized as an EIP jointly by the Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Environmental Protection and Ministry of Science and Technology. They therefore need to prepare a master plan for turning the existing industrial park into an EIP, and submit this for evaluation to the three ministries involved. Upon external assessment of the EIP plan, the industrial park can be recognised and access support from the Government to implement the EIP plan. Upon completion of the implementation of the EIP Plan the respective park would have to comply with the national EIP standard to keep its designation as EIP. So far 42 applications have been received and approved by the central government. This includes 31 multi-industry parks, 10 anchor industry parks and one recycling industry park. The first eight of these have now completed the implementation of their respective EIP plans.
The EIP technical standards were issued in 2005 and became effective from 2007. The standard contains objectives and targets in three categories: economic development; park management; and pollution and waste management. These have been differentiated for each of the three types of EIPs. As the EIP standard includes targets for continued growth in Manufacturing Value Added and decreased generation of waste and pollutants, continued compliance with the EIP standard is contingent on adoption of cleaner production practices and technologies.
Prof SHI Lei (Associate Professor of Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China): Practical Examples of Eco-Industrial Parks in China
The planned operationalization and implementation of Industrial Ecology through Industrial Symbiosis or Eco-Industrial Parks has progressed slow over the past two decades on the European and North American continents. Whilst China’s EIP experience is much more recent, it appears that greater success is already being achieved in China. One possible explanation is that in China economic zones/industrial parks have been the mainstream of industrial development. Whereas elsewhere existing industries were relocated to industrial zones, China created industrial zones as a platform for creating new industries. Some 4,500 industrial parks exist, under the each of the three administrative levels, i.e. national (some 190), province (some 1,300) and local (some 3,000).
In addition to the over 40 EIPs officially acknowledged by the Central Government, EIP is being embraced in a rapidly growing number of industrial development zones. The better known examples include for example: Yixing (chemicals recovery); Ningbo (by-products utilisation between paper mill, chemical plant, cement plant, steel mill and power plants); and Zhuhai (centralised steam system). In the latter case, 36 small boilers in 18 companies were replaced by one central system, saving approximately 600 ton fuel oil per hour.
Industrial development is very dynamic throughout China and this may present an advantage for EIP implementation compared to the opportunity for EIP implementation in mature industrial zones where development is more stagnant or intermittent. There is growing recognition that industrial parks are a platform for experimentation and implementation of eco-innovations. Main drivers contributing to eco-innovation are technology push (availability of environmental technologies), regulatory push (environmental legislation) and market pull (growing pressure from customers). These all seem to be at play in different combinations in many of the dynamic economic development zones across China.