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Industrialisation and environmental degradation seem to go hand in hand.
Until recently, human economic activities have been more concerned with
profit than sustainability. Most industrial processes are linear and operate
on the premise that resources are inexhaustible and that dumps for discarding
waste are bottomless. But both the report of the World Commission on Environment
and Development to the UN in 1987 and the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992
emphasised the need to alter that view.

One way is to model the interactions between industries on those found
in natural ecosystems. Here, energy and nutrients are recycled, working
their way from plants – the primary producers – through different levels
of consumers before finally being returned to the system by scavengers and
decomposers.

Applying this model to the industrial process, waste is no longer discarded;
instead, it becomes the raw material for other factories. And energy that
might be dissipated as waste heat is used by other, less demanding industries.
At a simple level, such schemes have been in place for years; for example,
General Motors operates four foundries in Ohio that use only scrap steel
from its other operations.

In the Danish town of Kalundborg a more complex scheme links a power
station, an oil refinery, a chemicals company, a plasterboard manufacturer,
a greenhouse, a fish farm and local homes and farms. The power station supplies
steam to the chemicals company and the refinery. Surplus heat warms the
greenhouse, the water for the fish farm, and homes nearby. Emissions from
the power station’s smoke stack are reduced by retrieving ash for cement
or roads, and calcium sulphate for plasterboard. The refinery supplies gas
to fuel the plasterboard company and water to cool the power station. Recovered
sulphur is sold for sulphuric acid. Sludge for farm fertiliser comes from
the fish farm and from the chemical plant. The system, which was refined
over a decade, has been dubbed industrial symbiosis.

But the term symbiosis is not strictly correct, for it refers to three
different types of relationship: parasitism, in which one organism benefits
at the expense of another; commensalism, in which one benefits with no harm
to another; and mutualism, in which both benefit. In an industrial ecosystem,
only mutualism and commensalism are encouraged.

Worldwide, there are already several examples of industrial symbiosis,
usually involving large companies which have the money and knowledge to
take advantage of such schemes. But most industrial activity involves small
and medium-sized businesses – for example, figures from 1990 show that 97
per cent of all businesses in Canada have fewer than 50 employees. By providing
help and incentives, such companies could also operate along the lines of
an ecosystem with enormous environmental and economic advantages.

Ray Cote, director and associate professor in the School for Resource
and Environmental Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia,
has spent the past three years studying Burnside Industrial Park, one of
Canada’s largest, in the hope of applying ecosystem concepts to the design
and management of industrial parks. Burnside, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia,
consists of more than 1200 small and medium-sized businesses employing 15
000 people. Of the 278 businesses Cote surveyed, only 14 used recycled materials
and only one-third practised energy conservation. The five most frequently
used materials were also the five most frequently wasted: paper, cardboard,
wood, oil and electricity. Although paper and cardboard were often sent
for recycling, the recycled product was rarely used in the park. Cote found
no examples of waste heat or waste water being used by other businesses.

Many of the Burnside business managers did not realise they were wasting
materials and energy. Packaging and fillers were often not viewed as waste.
Neither was heat released into the atmosphere from air conditioning and
freezing operations. The vaporisation of propellants and solvents from painting
and degreasing operations went unnoticed as a wasted resource.

Despite the poor ecological showing of the park, the business managers
were enthusiastic about making improvements. More than 90 per cent wanted
to participate in programmes to use their waste in a productive and environmentally
acceptable way. And 95 per cent wanted more information to improve efficiency
and minimise waste.

Information is one of the keys to making the park work more like an
ecosystem. ‘It’s there,’ says Cote, ‘but we must make it available.’ To
do that, he is developing a system of databases, which will be available
free for a trial period to all companies in the park. Using the databases,
managers will be able to find out if the raw material needed by their company
could be matched with waste generated by another. There will be information
on design features and techniques to improve conservation and reduce waste,
and help in identifying environmentally sound materials that can be substituted
for hazardous ones. For example, water-based compounds often work as well
as those based on volatile organic solvents.

Because one of the main factors influencing a business manager’s decision
to make ecological changes is the financial incentive, the databases will
hold information on government programmes which offer assistance. Government
regulations affecting disposal and transport of waste will also be included.
And because information is so important, there will be a list of further
information sources for businesses to turn to.

Working with nature

Although Cote’s study is not finished, his research group has recommended
ways in which the park could be more like an ecosystem. One of the most
basic is to consider how the park interacts with the natural environment.
Buildings should be adapted to take advantage of sunlight for heating, and
trees for wind breaks and shade. Instead of being drained for construction
sites, wetlands should be retained to filter runoff or sewage. Where possible,
natural vegetation, which can survive without fertiliser and pesticides,
should be left.

Other strategies aim to foster mutualism and commensalism. Companies
that can use each other’s waste should be sited close to one another. Small
companies could form cooperatives to buy waste recovery equipment or develop
new products from waste material. To ease the movement of waste, especially
hazardous materials, the park could be made a waste management zone, much
like a free trade zone, in which regulations are streamlined.

Cote would like to redefine waste. ‘It’s just misplaced or misused resources,’
he says, ‘material that’s in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong
quantity.’ Ultimately, it is the scavengers and decomposers that determine
whether a material is a waste or resource. Scavengers are already represented
in the park by scrap companies and those that buy, sell or trade second-hand
goods. And decomposers could be introduced, for example, in the form of
composters to transform restaurant and paper waste into soil for greenhouses
or landscape companies.

The research group has not forgotten people in its proposals. They,
too, form part of the park’s ecosystem. Pavements, bicycle paths, jogging
trails and showers would be included to encourage workers to travel to work
without cars. It may even be possible for people to live in the park. At
present, except for a few businesses that run night shifts, the park is
deserted at night. Cote is working with planners and designers at the Nova
Scotia College of Art and Design to see if houses and flats could be built
between or on top of the business units.

However, there are limits to the analogy between an industrial park
and a natural ecosystem. A natural system can be represented by a pyramid
in which the base consists of many plants – the primary producers. At each
level of the pyramid, from herbivores to carnivores and to scavengers, the
number of species and individuals decreases. Also, only plants can fix energy
from the Sun – the ultimate energy source – and at each level of the pyramid
some of that energy is lost through the metabolism and movement of organisms.

In an industrial ecosystem, the pyramid is inverted. Its ultimate source
of energy, its Sun, is a power plant. Primary producers are likely to be
one or two large industries, like refineries or steel mills. Waste material
and excess energy from them will feed several small industries. Also, every
factory or business in the industrial ecosystem can get energy from the
power plant. Although its raw material may be waste products and energy
from other businesses, any extra energy it require comes direct from the
industrial equivalent of the Sun. In effect, every factory is partly plant-like
in its behaviour.

In addition, a successful industrial ecosystem requires a degree of
cooperation not found in the natural world. Natural and industrial ecosystems
also differ in the timescales on which they operate. Nature works over decades
and centuries, reacting to change but not anticipating it. Industry works
quickly, over months and years, and can plan for change. ‘We create and
use new materials and chemicals much faster than nature,’ says Cote, ‘so
we have to find a way to compensate.’

Despite these differences, the model is valuable. Cote’s research is
already being considered at the Industry and Environment Office of the UN
Environment Programme in Paris and at the International Institute for Sustainable
Development in Winnipeg, Canada. However, with growing interest from the
governments in Indonesia and China, the first full-scale industrial ecosystem
may well be developed in the Far East.

Both China and Indonesia have booming economies and are creating vast
industrial parks. In Shanghai alone, industrial waste doubled between 1980
and 1989 and will approach 12 million tonnes annually by the end of the
century. The World Bank has predicted that Indonesia’s urban industrial
pollution could increase ten-fold over the next 25 years. Against this background,
Cote’s ideas could well prove invaluable in recycling resources and protecting
the environment.