IMPORTANCE OF INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY

ECO-RESTRUCTURING

LECTURE 2

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OUTLINE
 Importance of industrial ecology
 Restructuring
Restructuring the industrial system
 Drivers for Industrial Ecology

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 IMPORTANCE OF INDUSTRIAL
ECOLOGY…(1)
 IEsupports coordination of
design over the life cycle of
products and processes.

 It
enables creation of short-
term innovations with
awareness of their long-
term impacts.

 It helps design local

solutions that contribute to
global solutions.
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 IMPORTANCE OF INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY…(1)

 It helps companies become more

competitive by improving their
environmental performance and
strategic planning.

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 IMPORTANCE OF INDUSTRIAL
ECOLOGY…(2)

 IE helps communities develop and

maintain a sound industrial base and
infrastructure without sacrificing the
quality of their environments.

 Ithelps government agencies design

policies and regulations that improve
environmental protection while building
business competitiveness.

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 RESTRUCTURING THE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM
 The principal objective of Industrial
Ecology is to reorganize the
industrial system (including all
aspects of human activity) so that it
evolves towards a mode of operation
that is compatible with the biosphere
and is sustainable over the long term.

 The strategy for implementing the

concepts of Industrial Ecology is often
referred to as eco-restructuring and
can be described in terms of four main
elements 6
ELEMENTS OF ECO-
RESTRUCTURING
i. Optimizing the Use of Resources
ii. Closing Material Loops and
Minimizing Emission
iii. Dematerializing Activities
iv. Reduce and Eliminating the
Dependence on Non- renewable
Sources of energy

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1. OPTIMIZING THE USE OF
RESOURCES..(1)
 Optimizing the use of materials and energy in
any industrial activity starts with an analysis of
production processes in order to eliminate
unnecessary losses.

 This is a step that is carried out by individual

companies on their own activities and is called
Pollution Prevention or Cleaner Production

 Once we begin to consider the biological analogy

underlying Industrial Ecology, we realize that
additional aspects of resource optimization are
not covered by the approaches mentioned above
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 1. OPTIMIZING THE USE OF RESOURCES..
(2)
 In
natural ecosystems, certain species feed on
the waste of other species and thereby
contribute to the creation of a food chain.

 Industrial Ecology therefore suggests the idea

of an industrial food chain in which
companies are linked in some form of network
in order to exploit unutilized resources or by-
products and thereby increase resource
utilization
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 Thus bring in the concept of Eco- Industrial
1.1 ECO-INDUSTRIAL PARK (EIP)…(1)
 Theconcept of Eco-Industrial Park (EIP) was
developed early 1990s

 EIPsare areas in which companies cooperate

to optimize resource use, namely, by
mutually recovering the waste they generate
(the waste produced by one enterprise is
used as raw material by another)

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 1.1 ECO-INDUSTRIAL PARK (EIP)…(2)

 The notion of park should not be

considered in the sense of a
geographically confined area: an eco-
industrial park can very well encompass a
neighboring city even a remote enterprises,
especially if the latter is the only one around
capable of recovering a rare type of waste
impossible to process at other factory sites.

 Hencethe new term, eco-industrial networks,

where parks represent a particular case, is
appropriate 11
INDUSTRIAL PARK

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2. CLOSING MATERIAL LOOPS AND
MINIMIZING EMISSION….(1)

 In natural ecosystems all materials flow

cyclically in the form of a closed loop. For
example, bacteria, fungi and small
invertebrates break down dead matter or
waste products from plants into simpler
chemical compounds that can once again be
used by plants

 Companies that carry out this function of

recycling wastes in the industrial ecosystem
are usually referred to as recyclers
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2. CLOSING MATERIAL LOOPS AND MINIMIZING
EMISSION….(1)

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2. CLOSING MATERIAL LOOPS AND
MINIMIZING EMISSION….(3)
 Unfortunately, while natural ecosystems are
very effective at closing the material loops,
the industrial ecosystem is still far from optimal.

 Only a small fraction of the waste is returned to

the system; the majority is lost from the
industrial system:

 through the creation of waste during the

manufacturing of products
 as waste that is formed by a product when it is
considered to be of no further useful value
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 in the form of products that are designed to be
completely or partially dispersed during their use
2. CLOSING MATERIAL LOOPS AND
MINIMIZING EMISSION….(3)

 Closing material loops within the industrial

ecosystem, therefore, means addressing the complete
life cycle of the product

 However, energy is required to close the material loop

in a natural or an industrial ecosystem

 As long as we continue to use fossil fuels as our

main source of energy in the industrial
ecosystem, recycling will also contribute to the
creation of waste from the combustion process 16
2. CLOSING MATERIAL LOOPS AND
MINIMIZING EMISSION….(4)
 The energy associated with recovery of a
material must therefore be considered when
deciding on a strategy for closing the loop

 There are some materials that are designed to

be completely or partially dispersed during their
use. Some examples are pharmaceuticals,
fertilizers, pesticides, detergents, solvents, etc.
Such materials clearly cannot be recycled after
use and will always represent a loss of
resources. Minimizing dissipation of this type of
product is a difficult challenge and may be
addressed (in some cases) by rethinking about
the service demanded. 17
3. DEMATERIALIZING ACTIVITIES…
(1)
 An important objective of Industrial Ecology is
not only to create cyclic flows of materials but
also to minimize the total flow of matter and
energy used to provide equivalent services

 Technical progress often makes it possible to obtain

more service from a smaller amount of matter,
such as by producing lighter objects or by replacing
one material by another (e.g. a few kilograms of
optical fiber allows for more
telecommunications throughput than one
tonne of copper cable).

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3. DEMATERIALIZING ACTIVITIES…
(2)
 However, dematerialization is not as simple as it may
seem—less massive products may have shorter
life spans and will therefore ultimately consume
more resources and generate more waste

 Furthermore, dematerialization does not apply only to

consumer goods, but also to the heavy infrastructure
of the industrial system, such as buildings, roads,
transportation network

 there have been many claims that the emerging

information technologies will contribute to the
dematerialization of the economy 19
3. DEMATERIALIZING ACTIVITIES…
(3)
 Probably one of the best ways to
dematerialize the economy is to
emphasize the service rendered, or the
function, i.e. to market the use of the
product rather than the product itself

 Within the context of Industrial Ecology, the

objective is to prioritize use in order to
evolve towards a genuine service-oriented
society, also referred to as functional
economy
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3. DEMATERIALIZING ACTIVITIES…(4)

 This involves strategies such as durability (extending

the useful life of a product), renting rather than
owning, and selling use rather than the actual
product.

-For example; a photocopy machine

manufacturer who sells the photocopy service
rather than the machine itself, will run a more
profitable operation if the photocopy machine,
of which he retains ownership, requires as little
matter inputs as possible, has the longest
possible useful life, is easily recyclable
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4. REDUCE AND ELIMINATING THE
DEPENDENCE ON NON- RENEWABLE SOURCES
OF ENERGY…(1)

 Energy is an extremely important factor in the eco-

restructuring of the industrial system.

 All efforts have to be made to increase energy

efficiency through developments such as co-
generation and energy cascading.

 However, fossil fuels (coal, oil or natural gas) are a

crucial factor in powering the engines of industrial
economies

 Combustion of fossil fuels is fundamentally has been

explained to contribute many environmental 22

problems, including the enhanced greenhouse

effect, acid rain
Renewable
energy

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4. REDUCE AND ELIMINATING THE
DEPENDENCE ON NON- RENEWABLE SOURCES
OF ENERGY…(2)
 Eco-restructuring, therefore, must involve a change in
the way that we obtain energy so as to make it more
compatible with the goals of Industrial Ecology

 In the first phase we can try to make fossil fuel

consumption less harmful—for example, by recovering
carbon dioxide gas or by decarbonizing the energy
supply via a change from coal and oil to natural gas
(and eventually perhaps hydrogen)

 However, it is clear that this is only a temporary solution

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and the move from fossil fuels to alternative renewable
energies must be made quickly
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DRIVERS FOR INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY
1. Company-internal
Management Commitment
• The commitment of senior management to
consider environmental issues impacts caused
by the company’s products and processes as
an integral part of the daily operation and
management of the company

Employee involvement
• Effective communication between managers,
staff and production departments is critical for
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initiating as well as maintaining successful IE

1. Company-internal Drivers , cont
Cost awareness
• IE might help in reducing current environmental
costs and minimizing, or even avoiding, future
environmental costs as well as the gains due to
efficiency and consumption reduction

Occupational health and safety

programmes
•A well established occupational health and
safety programme is often a proper breeding
ground for environmental improvement
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2. Company-external

􀂄Environmental legislation
􀂄 Market pressure
􀂄 Public pressure
􀂄 Product liability

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FUTURE INDUSTRIES

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