Eco Parks & Environment
Eco-Industrial Parks:
The Case for Private Planning
Industrial ecologists are championing eco-industrial parks or EIPs as tools for pursuing sustainable development. An EIP is a community of companies located in one region that exchange and make use of each other's by-products or energy. Among the best known is Kalundborg, Denmark, a city in which the major industries and the local government trade their waste streams and energy resources.
Many commentators see Kalundborg as a model that should be copied and improved upon. "Imagine what a team of designers could come up with if they were to start from scratch, locating and specifying industries and factories that had potentially synergistic and symbiotic relationships," writes Paul Hawken (1993, 63), author of The Ecology of Commerce. Ernest A. Lowe (1997, 58) points out that "while industrial ecosystems must be largely self-organizing, there is a significant role for an organizing team in educating potential participants to the opportunities and in creating the conditions that support the development." Because of this enthusiastic endorsement, numerous EIPs have been planned in North and South America, Southeast Asia, Europe and Southern Africa (Ayres 1996; Indigo Development 1998; Gertler 1995; Lowe 1997).
Kalundborg, a small city on the island of Seeland, 75 miles west of Copenhagen, is indeed an impressive example of a recycling network. In this city of 20,000, the four main industries--a coal-fired power plant (Asnæs), a refinery (Statoil), a pharmaceuticals and enzymes maker (Novo Nordisk), a plasterboard manufacturer (Gyproc), as well as the municipal government and a few smaller businesses--feed on each others' wastes, in the process turning them into useful inputs.
The Asnæs power company supplies residual steam to the Statoil refinery and, in exchange, receives refinery gas that used to be flared as waste. The power plant burns the refinery gas to generate electricity and steam. It sends excess steam
The Case for Private Planning
Industrial ecologists are championing eco-industrial parks or EIPs as tools for pursuing sustainable development. An EIP is a community of companies located in one region that exchange and make use of each other's by-products or energy. Among the best known is Kalundborg, Denmark, a city in which the major industries and the local government trade their waste streams and energy resources.
Many commentators see Kalundborg as a model that should be copied and improved upon. "Imagine what a team of designers could come up with if they were to start from scratch, locating and specifying industries and factories that had potentially synergistic and symbiotic relationships," writes Paul Hawken (1993, 63), author of The Ecology of Commerce. Ernest A. Lowe (1997, 58) points out that "while industrial ecosystems must be largely self-organizing, there is a significant role for an organizing team in educating potential participants to the opportunities and in creating the conditions that support the development." Because of this enthusiastic endorsement, numerous EIPs have been planned in North and South America, Southeast Asia, Europe and Southern Africa (Ayres 1996; Indigo Development 1998; Gertler 1995; Lowe 1997).
Kalundborg, a small city on the island of Seeland, 75 miles west of Copenhagen, is indeed an impressive example of a recycling network. In this city of 20,000, the four main industries--a coal-fired power plant (Asnæs), a refinery (Statoil), a pharmaceuticals and enzymes maker (Novo Nordisk), a plasterboard manufacturer (Gyproc), as well as the municipal government and a few smaller businesses--feed on each others' wastes, in the process turning them into useful inputs.
The Asnæs power company supplies residual steam to the Statoil refinery and, in exchange, receives refinery gas that used to be flared as waste. The power plant burns the refinery gas to generate electricity and steam. It sends excess steam