Lessons from China’s industrial symbiosis leadership

To those who have seen China’s grey skies, dried-up riverbeds and polluted lakes, it may come as a surprise that the country is on the cutting edge of one particularly innovative environmental strategy: industrial symbiosis, or the practice of using one factory’s waste as another one’s raw materials and sharing infrastructure and knowledge among local firms.

Industrial symbiosis is a central part of a手机app买球靠谱吗, a model in which resources and energy are recycled and recovered instead of moving linearly from extraction to disposal. China is among the only nations in the world with a formal circular economy policy that breaks down theoretical circular economy concepts into concrete policy measures. The 2008 Circular Economy Promotion Law, for example, demanded that factories and industries — particularly resource-heavy ones such as cement and aluminum — embed themselves in a network of recycling.

“这不是中国发明了工业循环的关闭，作为节省资源使用的手段。相反，它采取了[循环经济]在德国，日本和美国开发的创新，并通过有针对性地扩大了它们手机app买球靠谱吗工业园区的政策，“麦格理大学管理教授John Mathews表示。他说，中国已经能够将建立的工业园区变成生态工业园区，其中生产的模式体现了循环经济原则。手机app买球靠谱吗

许多中国行业通过工业共生，具体地将循环经济政策指令与工业共生。手机app买球靠谱吗中国已经批准了200多个生态工业园区。

Building on innovation elsewhere

Industrial symbiosis thought emerged two decades ago, when researchers observed that waste and energy usage from industrial operations drastically could be decreased by using the waste of one firm as the input of another, and sharing infrastructure such as steam or water processes. Industrial symbiosis takes biological symbiosis as its guiding metaphor, mimicking the symbiotic relationships found in nature, such as the clownfish cleaning the sea anemone in return for protection from predators.

One of the best-known examples of industrial symbiosis is the eco-industrial park in Kalundborg, Denmark, which since 1961 slowly has grown into a large ecosystem of factories. It now counts close to 30 exchanges of industrial waste among its tenants. China, in its unique capacity to control high-volume material flows and manage industrial production through top-down directives, has been able to implement industrial symbiosis far more rapidly than the organic unfolding of eco-industrial developments such as Kalundborg.

“中国为研究提供了一个美妙的实验空间，”清华大学环境科学教授及中国国家环保重点实验室副主任的环境科学教授表示。中国的规模和权威能力允许在大规模规模上进行循环经济等思想。手机app买球靠谱吗中国说，中国采用了循环经济原则和工业共生手机app买球靠谱吗，每次加强另一个。为了应对过度的填埋，环境危害和资源不安全，公共和私人利益在一起，共同找到循环解决方案。

虽然中国政府促进了一系列公司的奖励，但虽然公司采用产业共生，但实践也只是从商业角度来看。例如，Kalundborg性能的数据表示公园内的公司跨国公司的1亿美元集体年度节省。当浪费被视为收入来源而不是损失时，节省可能是巨大的。此外，当原材料只需要在街道上移动到最终目的地时，可以减少成本，并且可以在公司中共享基础设施和服务。

No waste treatment plant in this eco-industrial park

日照生态工业园区，也被称为Reda，是对中国工业共生增长的生命之象。Reda于1991年成立于1991年，Reda是中国第一波中国工业园区的一部分，该园区纳入了副产品交流和分享了基础设施进入其公司的核心业务模式。最初，副产品分享由公园内的公司发起，希望能够减少固体废物的税收。这与崭露头角的政府战略一致，以促进资源再利用和能源效率，并很快得到了政府作为生态工业园区的特殊状况。

自1992年第一次副产品交易所以来，当地公司之间的31台交流会出现，每个都会增加资源节约和环境效益。停车的发展随着时间的推移是让人想起一个城市的缓慢发展 - 每隔几年，新的“社区”弹出合作行业。

These clusters of symbiotic exchanges are part of the dynamic, complex network of material and energy flows. A fertilizer factory is fed with vinasse, a byproduct of sugar, from a nearby beer brewery. A paper and pulp plant receives scrap wood from a nearby wood factory as input, while providing sludge for fertilizer, green mud for building materials, white sludge for a citric acid factory and a cement plant, wood chips for a charcoal factory, fly ash for a cement plant, and waste hot water for an aquaculture mill.

不是中国已经发明了工业循环的关闭，作为节省资源使用的手段。它已经采取了循环经济创新并手机app买球靠谱吗缩放了它们。

这些交易所代表巨大的材料储蓄：仅在2011年，使用71,446吨的白色污泥用作REDA柠檬酸和水泥厂中碳酸钙的替代品。附近的水泥和建筑材料供应超过66,000吨粉煤灰和20,000吨绿泥作为原料。

REDA does not contain a waste treatment plant. Through a combination of symbiosis and cleaner production practices, 98 percent of the industrial solid waste in the park is recycled.

“鉴于其产业化努力的大规模，鉴于其产业化努力，鉴于依赖于工业循环，鉴于其产业化努力，鉴于其巨大的工业化循环来说，这是一个有意义的。”Reda不仅有助于公司在原材料和运输上省钱，减少工业园区的环境影响，以更广泛的规模，有助于降低对外国的资源依赖。

中国的大学生正在教授工业共生的原则。许多学生发现工业共生的课程特别有趣，因为它可以把更多的学术概念，如工业生态学 - 工业共生来自哪个更广泛的领域 - 进入有形，真实的背景下。下一代中国工程师毕业于全新工具箱来解决环境问题。

China’s need for resource security and environmental protection has forced the country to adopt innovative practices such as industrial symbiosis on a widespread scale. Yet given current trends in population growth and industrialization, the rest of the world is not far off from having to worry about these same pressing environmental and resource questions.

In this way, China’s eco-industrial parks can be a roadmap for future production models. No longer would a sugar plant be built in isolation, but a paper factory, molasses factory and fertilizer factory would be built aside it. The industrial symbiosis model shows us that shows that every industry has the opportunity to be part of a profitable circular economy.