Industrial Ecology a New Path to
Sustainability: AN EMPIRICAL Review
Felichesmi Selestine Lyakurwa
Mzumbe University, Tanzania
E-mail: fslyakurwa@mzumbe.ac.tz
lyakurwa@mail.dlut.edu.cn
Submission: 15/12/2013
Revision: 02/01/2014
Accept: 10/01/2014
ABSTRACT
The
precise understanding of the link between industrial ecology and sustainability
is vitally important for a continuous environmental performance. In this study,
an intensive review of industrial ecology principles, its application areas and
the extent to which industrial ecology has been applied was documented. It was observed that the effective
application of industrial ecology is critical for sustainability, since the
industry is the main polluter of the environment. It was further inferred that,
there is inadequate applicability of the industrial ecology principles by
developed countries. Thus I hypothesized that, there is a great opportunity for
new investment in this field considering the absence of modern means for the
liquid and solid waste management. For example, improper incineration of wastes
such as hospital wastes, and the electrical and electronic equipment was
perceived to bring health problems in the near future. Therefore, it is time
for the governments in both developed and developing countries to increase the
applicability of industrial ecology, for sustainable social, economic,
political and environmental performances.
Keywords: Industrial ecology, Sustainability, Environment,
Resource, Materials, Energy
1.
Introduction
In
recent years, implementation of industrial ecology strategies has been
ever-increasing due to growth in environmental concern including depletion of
natural resources and severe pollution of water, air and soil (Despeisse, et al. 2012; Quijorna, et al. 2011; Thatcher, 2013).
Industrial
ecology deals with identifying all
possible energy and
material exchanges that
allow mitigation of the resources
used (e.g., materials and the
environmental impacts of
human activities for sustainable developments) (Eckkelman; Chertow
2009; Gerber, et al. 2013).
The industrial
symbiosis is an important aspect of industrial ecology such that wastes,
by-products and energy exchanges between different industries for
sustainability are practiced. Industrial Ecology (IE) was established and
implemented by developed countries so as to achieve satisfactory levels of
sustainability. An important application of IE concept is the Eco-Industrial
Estate that is defined
as: The community of business seeking which improves social, economic and
environmental performance via collaboration in managing environmental and
resource issues (e.g., energy, water and materials) (Lowe; Evans,
1995; Panyathanakun, et al.
2013).
The
applicability of IE strategies by developing or low income countries including
Tanzania is at the infant stage such that much has been done for the waste
management only. Many tons of industrial wastes are produced every year (Mbuligwe; Kaseva, 2006; Magashi,
2011), but safe waste disposal systems are lacking. For example various solid
wastes (e.g., plastic bottles, the electronic and electrical equipment, metal
scraps and so on), that may pose serious human health and environmental
problems today or in the future are collected at the dumping sites. Some people
think that we are not industrialized and thus, it is not possible to encounter
serious environmental problems as the industrialized countries.
With
the chemistry of action, heavy metals and chemical substances that were used to
manufacture plastics and electrical and electronic products will degrade in the
environment leading to pollution of water resources, soil, air and even
sediment. After all the adverse effects of the industrial wastes that are resulted
from improper (lack of) treatment and incineration of toxic substances will
appear after several decades, since some of the chemicals are persistent in the
environment. However, utilization of IE depends on the social, economic,
environmental and political status of the specific country. Considering the
differences in economic levels between developed and developing countries, what
is the position of poor (i.e., low income countries) in implementation of the IE
principles? To what extent can low income countries manage to implement the IE
concept? Or low income countries are not affected by the current environmental
problems, despite of the fact that pollution has no boarders? And so on).
These
are some of the important questions that industrial ecologists need to address
to achieve sustainable development goals. The applicability of IE has more to
do than sustainability that is through utilization of IE principles such as
zero wastes, material minimization and design for environment for conservation
of natural resources of the country. With the IE and sustainability thinking,
much saving of the natural resources including minerals, water, energy and
other useful materials are achieved.
And
this should be considered by both developed and developing countries, with the
aim of ensuring sustainable developments. Much attention must be considered in
its implementation as well, so as to avoid shifting the environmental impacts
to other environmental media (i.e., when countries are trying to reduce freshwater
scarcity for example by desalination technology, there is possibility of
producing more CO2 to the environment that might contribute greatly
to greenhouse gas emissions).
Or
reuse of wastes via recycling in the industrial parks, might lead into other
environmental problems such as production of large quantity of defected
products which have health problems to the consumers. Therefore, this study
intends to present an empirical review of the existing link between IE and
sustainability as well as the IE application areas.
2.
Delineation of sustainability
Human
activities have contributed significantly to the degradation of natural
resources and the ability of the Earth’s natural resources to recover over the
last 150 years (Vitousek 1994, Thatcher 2013, Dumont et al. 2013).
Many
human activities including intensive agriculture and manufacturing have
contributed in a large extent to the disruption of the Earths’ natural nutrient
recycling patterns, climatic systems and the ecological biodiversity (Graedel; Allenby, 2004; Bates,
et al. 2008). Likewise, the degradation of the environment has been linked to
severe adverse effects to human health and ecosystem quality such as increased
respiratory problems, body cancer, inhibition of growth and disruption of the
endocrine systems as well as global warming effects that have accelerated
malnutrition in many parts of the world (Pimentel,
et al. 2007).
Kellert
(2005) and Louv (2005) contended that, the degradation of the natural
environment has led to severe negative implications to the human psychological
well-being and problems in human developments. Sustainability and sustainable
development are well established concepts, such that they are viewed as
multidisciplinary as they are composed of four interrelated components (i.e.,
society) (people), environment (planet), economy (profit), and
technology (science) (Despeisse,
et al. 2012).
A
wide range of tools and methods have been applied to evaluate and manage the
adverse effects of industrial production so as to support the integration of
sustainability concepts in the corporate action plan. This among others
includes the Industrial Ecology, Cleaner Production, Pollution Prevention,
Design for Manufacturing (DE), Design for Manufacturing (DM) and Sustainable
Manufacturing (SM) (Graedel; Allenby, 2004).
Manufacturing
systems cannot exist in isolation from other facilities which support them as
they can affect sustainability in terms of the energy utilizations. Therefore,
the understanding of the link between IE practices and sustainability with
considerations of the human well-being is vitally important.
To
date, there are several frameworks that can be used to describe sustainability such
as the frameworks of the triple bottom line approach, the natural step,
ecological footprint and sustainable estimation of the emissions and resource
use (Marshall; Toffel, 2005). These frameworks give
emphasis on the technological innovations via integration of environmental
issues in the industrial products as well as the process and service designs
leading to the improved business decisions.
The
strategic change of the industrial paradigm from the end of the pipe
environmental management approach to a holistic approach is encouraged. Through
which the balance between social, economic and environmental business goals can
be achieved for sustainable development. Fiskel (2002) contended sustainable
development as a new ideology introduced to restructure the existing policies
of an organization and industrial manufacturing practices, to achieve both
economic growth and quality of life in the future. The reason being means to
deal with wastes generated from various manufacturing processes as they
threaten the state of the environment.
According
to the Brundtland (1987), sustainable development can be defined as the
development without causing danger to the future generations in fulfilling
their needs. The characterization of impact categories resulted from pollutant
emission levels, unavailability or exploitation of resources and their ultimate
impacts to the three areas of protection (i.e., human health, ecosystem quality
and resource depletion) is critical for sustainability.
The
triple bottom line approach: This is a new approach among the sustainability
frameworks which use the philosophy that sustainable development could only be
achieved if business development decisions made, seek for a balance between
economic, social and environmental concerns (Elkington,
1998).
Traditionally
business organizations were focused on the profit making and leave alone social
and environmental issues which resulted into severe environmental burdens such
as resource depletion, global climate change, depletion of the ozone layer as
well as air, soil and water pollution. It is a true fact that, the
implementation of the triple bottom line approach could be enhanced by
enforcement of various policies and regulations from the global, regional and
local scale such as the polluter pays principle, agreement on transfer of toxic
substances, carbon dioxide emission levels and the requirement to disclose
environmental information.
The
Natural Step: In this framework sustainable society is determined by the level
of resource exploitation, accumulation of society produce, environmental
degradation and ability to fulfil the current human needs (Nattrass; Altomare, 1999). Societal sustainability is perceived from a
sustained improvement of the living standard of people, in terms of the education,
access to safe and clean drinking water and sanitary services, availability of
food, political stability and decrease of vulnerable diseases. However, many
industries have introduced a corporate social responsibility organ so as to
ensure natural step, but still the question of its success and failures
remains.
The
ecological Footprint: This framework concerns with an examination and evaluation
of the environmental impacts resulted from a limited utilization of natural
resources as well as the functioning of the ecosystem. Ecological footprint
estimates the ratio of earths available for the required biological productive
land area to maintain resource flow and wastes at a normal standard of living
of the society (Wackernagel; Rees, 1996).
The
key concern is to compare natural resource availability with respect to users so
as to establish the environmental impacts of resource unavailability with
respect to those of users. This could
best be explained by the water footprint or carbon footprints, which can be
avoided by the change of industrial behavior whereby water intensive production
processes are replaced by less water intensive or a customer behavior change by
acceptance of products that are manufactured from recycled by-products as a
means to minimize the virgin material use (i.e., resource use).
The
sustainable emissions and resource use: This is a four stage comprehensive rate
of resource use framework (Graedel;
Klee, 2002) which includes; (1)
determination of the supply of available raw materials (2) estimation of
materials consumption rate in the population (3) accounting of the recycled
materials and the existing landfills for the estimation of consumption rate and
finally, the obtained consumption rate is considered as maximum sustainable
rate to benchmark the present and future resource use.
This
is an optimistic approach which seeks to ensure optimal use of resources (i.e.,
energy, water, and materials) as well as the use of byproducts (e.g., wastes)
as feedstock materials for the optimal raw materials use and continuous
environmental improvements of the Earth. Indeed implementation of IE principles
via a well-defined sustainability framework guarantees a continuous
environmental quality of performances for the manufacturing and service industries.
However,
one might be interested on the extent to which manufacturing industries
especially in developing countries have managed to implement either of the
sustainability frameworks? It is obvious the answer shall be to a lower extent
and in some countries might be no implementation at all. The expected answers
indicate a sign of severe environmental problems in the future and the
achievement of the millennium development goals is a mere dream. Usually, it is
only through research and developments that precise answers to the questions
could be obtained. Hence, under the eye of IE, this area needs more basic
research to unveil the truth, for the environmental sustainability.
3. The context of industrial
ecology (IE)
The
idea of industrial ecology emerged from the pioneering work of Robert Ayres and
his Co-workers on the examination of materials and energy flows in various systems
ranging from the river basins to the whole economies by early 1970s (Ehrenfeld, 2002). That examination of
the energy and materials has invented the flow of energy and food within the
ecological systems based on industrial metabolism. At the same time, the research
and planning groups where studying how to make the Japanese less dependent on
the materials that were used in the production process by using the name
“industrial ecology” in their official titles (Watanabe, 1972).
The
legitimacy of industrial ecology was strengthened by the inaugural meeting of
the newly formed international society for industrial ecology in
Noordwijkerhout, the Netherlands November 2001 in which 300 delegates from 29
countries attended (Ehrenfeld,
2002). IE concerns with the study of natural resource production and
environmental impacts resulted from the industrial processes or consumer
products, their production and the consumption systems (Berkel, et al. 2009).
Therefore,
industrial symbiosis and metabolism are key categories of IE. While the former
concerns with the resource exchange between firms, the latter is more concerned
with the resource use within firms (i.e., industrial operation in a closed
loop) under the philosophy of no waste (i.e., zero emissions).
Fiksel
(2002) perceived IE as the holistic framework for guiding transformation of
industrial systems from a linear model to a closed loop model that resembles
the cyclical flow of ecosystems. This includes resource use optimization by
industrial systems through industrial metabolism and efficient use of the materials,
energy, water and by-products via industrial metabolism.
This
framework of IE seeks to achieve the multidimensional objectives of social,
economic and environmental concerns for the sustainable development. White (1994)
defined industrial ecology as the study of the flows of materials or energy in
the industry, and the effects of these flows on environment, that influence
greatly the economic, political, and social factors. This definition reflects
the reality that the goal of IE is to expand the framework of industrial system
and consider it in a wide perspective.
Involves
thinking beyond ending up with quality products and business profits to the consideration
of the environmental impacts of the production processes to the human health,
and future condition of the resources. Graedel and Allenby (1995) defined IE as
the science of sustainability. Whereby IE is viewed in an industrial
perspective, as a practical approach which involves studying of the industrial
systems to create scientific methods for the optimization of resource use,
characterize environmental impacts and develop remedial measures to deal with,
for greener development.
Industrial
ecology is a newly emerging profession which involves an intensive examination
and evaluation of natural ecosystem behavior to create scientific approaches
for sustainable development (Quijorna,
et al., 2011). With a key focus on resource use optimization through
technological innovations of the existing industrial systems to accommodate
reprocessing of by-products (wastes) and offer efficient use of materials and
energy.
Chertow
and Lombardi (2005) argued resource sharing among co-located firms to be a
strategic approach for ensuring continuous industrial operation by a steady
flow of materials, energy and water in resource scarce regions. Despite of the
economic benefits of the process it amounts into the environmental conservation
via efficient use of non-renewable resources and use of by-products (i.e., wastes)
as feedstock materials by other firms.
3.1. Practical applications of IE
The
applicability of IE principles by manufacturing systems will be sustainable if
it has successful impacts on the social, economic and environmental
performances. To date IE has been applied in many social – economic activities
such as manufacturing industries, animal farming, intensive agriculture as well
as in the music theatres (e.g., quantification of carbon footprint in the music
industry) and so on (Graedel; Allenby, 2004, Dumont, et al. 2013).
The
application of industrial ecology as a sustainability tool can be viewed from
the waelz process. Waelz process is a chemistry of action technological process
used to recover volatile metals from an electric arc furnace dust, in which
dusts are heated at temperatures 1100 to 1200 centigrade (Quijorna, et al., 2011).
Waelz
slag generated from the process (i.e., by-products) are used in civil
engineering works as a filter (dust) in roads, sports ground or dykes
construction sites. Also waelz slag can be incorporated with the construction
materials for bricks, tiles and pavers. The method ensures optimal utilization
of virgin materials and continuous improvement through use of byproduct (e.g., waelz
slag) as substitute materials for bricks making and dust remover in the construction
sites.
According
to Hermann et al., (2007) use of biotechnology showed savings of more than 100%
of non-renewable fossil fuels and green-house gas emissions. The consumption of
fossil fuels was minimized by alternative use of biofuels obtained in the
process of producing bulk chemicals from biomass (e.g., biotechnology). This
brought a significant effect to the resolution of current and future
environmental concerns such as climate change and depletion of vital resources.
Utilization
of industrial ecology by government and industries can be viewed from the case
of Kalundborg industrial park, Denmark. Kalundborg involves resource sharing
between oil refinery, power station, gypsum board facility, and pharmaceutical
companies that shares surface water, waste water, steam and fuel, and variety
of byproducts which becomes feed materials to other company in the network.
Resource sharing in the Kalundborg industrial park reported saving as follows:
ground water saving (2.1 million m3/year), surface water saving (1.2
million m3/year), natural gypsum (200,000tpy) and oil saving of
20,000tonnes/year (Chertow; Lombardi,
2005).
Recycling
and reuse of industrial byproducts showed both economic (i.e., reduced operating
costs) and environmental (i.e., use of by-products to save other purpose)
benefits an indication for sustainability. Industrial use of byproducts (i.e., wastes)
as materials for production process in Pennsylvania indicated energy saving and
reduction in emissions of gaseous elements (Eckelman;
Chertow, 2009).
The
distribution of primary energy saving of (13pajoule), emission reductions of CO2
of (0.9 million metric tons, eq), SO2 (4300 tons eq) and NOx
(4200 tons) of emissions from the residual wastes were achieved. Savings was
resulted from the fact that processing of secondary materials need less energy
for processing as well as processing of secondary materials generates lower
gaseous elements.
Inspite
of the benefits, yet the process is challenged by capability of the existing
facilities to cope with the generation rate of wastes in Pennsylvania. Thus, it
is more appropriate to opt for a proactive technological approach whose goal is
to reduce emissions from the resource extraction, production, during use and
disposal.
Policy
and legal frameworks of the country has vital role in successful implementation
of industrial ecology ideology by industries and governments. This is evidenced
by introduction of basic law for recycling based society in Japan of the year
2000. The law intended to improve resource productivity to 40% by 2010, whereby
40% of feedstock materials used for production processes must be recycled
materials (Berkel, et al., 2009).
Therefore,
lack of government support and enforcement of environmental laws,
implementation of industrial ecology will still remain inadequate due to costs
accompanied with its implementation. Industrial ecology is accompanied with
technological innovations which might increase companies operating costs to
ensure standard skill level of staffs, quality of raw materials, machines and
equipment. This obviously makes company owners reluctant on its implementation,
unless government policies and laws intervene for the sake of majority.
Despites
of the economic, social and environmental benefits from use of industrial
ecology as a sustainability tool, yet shortfalls were reported for example
carmakers in Japan, Europe and Korea. According to the European Commission
report of 1999; European carmakers agreed to reduce CO2 emission of
passenger cars to 140 grams per kilometer by 2008, and 2009 for Asian
carmakers. This reduction was approximated to be 2% of CO2 emissions
instead achieved to reduce CO2 emissions to 1.2% (Betts, et al. 2005).
However,
it showed advancements in reduction of air pollution which would result into
higher costs if one can quantify, looking at its impacts to human health and
other ecosystem species. It is a true fact that most of the developing
countries around the world have not implemented the IE principles to a large
extent due to inadequate finance, lack of technology, lack of goodwill to
implement, and poor infrastructure to support greener technologies (i.e.,
industrial symbiosis and the like).
However,
it is helpful to start implementation of the principles through stages (i.e.,
adoption of the frameworks (models) even at a lowest level) so that they can be
improved further in the future rather than not implementing them at al.
Moreover, other greener production aspects needs consideration of environmental
issues in the industry’s strategic plans (i.e., implementation of IE principles
should be treated as a strategic issue by organization and not as an ad hoc. This will be achieved by
effective use of the corporate industrial ecology tool box, whereby the design
for manufacture, life cycle assessments, industrial parks and symbiosis are
practiced with the aim of resource minimization and zero waste.
4. Conclusion
A
comprehensive review of the link between IE ecology and sustainability has been
established in this study. The application of IE principles was seen to be
practiced by developed or industrialized countries through industrial symbiosis
and establishment of industrial parks. Whereby, less has been done by
developing countries including Tanzania due to inadequate investment such that
safe incineration of industrial wastes is lacking and opt for landfill type of
solid waste disposal.
Thus,
I argue that this is a new area of investment, by application of IE strategies
in which wastes are used as virgin materials leading to conservation of natural
resources (e.g. energy, freshwater and minerals). Despite of the minimum
resources used via utilization of the IE principles it will also results into
sustainable environmental performances of our industries.
Likewise,
industrial sustainability will be achieved through effective implementation of
IE concepts. Hence, it is the responsibility of the governments and industries
to introduce and enforce policies or regulations that aim at social, economic
and environmental sustainability. With the industries operating according to
the laws and regulations in place, this will create sustainable business
growth, the improved living standard of people, and environmental conditions.
Moreover,
more researches are required to quantify the extent to which IE principles are
applied, and estimate possible human health and environmental risks in the
future.
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