Industrial Ecology

Industrial ecology takes a holistic view of industrial systems. It balances industrial development with the sustainable use of natural resources, and likens industrial systems to natural systems. The concept of industrial ecology promotes a shift away from open, linear systems towards systems similar to those found in nature, where processes are interacting systems rather than isolated components.

Two examples of industrial ecology are industrial symbiosis and 'clustering'. Industrial symbiosis internalizes environmental costs into production and consumption processes. Industrial clusters, or eco-industrial parks, take advantage of the outputs of co-located operations, turning wastes into raw materials.

To implement industrial symbiosis, companies create complex networks of material flows, developing sets of linkages throughout their operations to increase the efficiency of material and energy throughput. These links enable companies to capture emissions and wastes and to recycle them back into other processes as inputs.

Based on this approach GTZ is developing pilot applications of Eco-Industrial Parks (download, pdf-file, 400 kb, 48 S.).

In Indonesia and Thailand for example, it is thought of using the PREMA approach and especially the Good Housekeeping approach to also stimulate companies to tap all process-integrated in-house optimization potentials while looking for synergies in eco-industrial parks.

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