Table of Contents

Abstract

1. Ecosystems as Models for Industrial Development 
2. The Kalundborg Industrial Ecosystem: Development and Implications 
3. The Zero Emissions Research Initiative 
4. Industrial Ecosystems in the U.S.: The Eco-Industrial Park Project 
5. How the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Impedes Resource Conservation and Recovery: Problems and Some Proposed Solutions 
6. Flexible Networks and Inter-Firm Collaboration: Applications to Industrial Ecosystem Development 
7. The Development of Industrial Ecosystems 

Abstract

This thesis proposes an alternate model for the organization and management of the technological structures that form the industrial economy. This alternative arises from the discipline of industrial ecology, which has emerged over the past several years as a potential guide for that realignment. This new field promises to create opportunities to improve both environmental performance and business performance, while offering a paradigm for restructuring the industrial system in a fashion that is compatible with notions of sustainability. Where traditional approaches to environmental management focus on individual processes and industrial units, industrial ecology takes a more systemic approach, of broader scope and longer time-frame. A key aspect of this view is the analogy it draws between the human economy and natural ecosystems, which exhibit closed-loop materials and energy flows. 

This research applies industrial ecology to the development of inter-firm arrangements which mimic the material and energy cycling of natural ecosystems. Industrial symbiosis is presented as a means to greatly increase the systemic efficiency of material and energy use by creating linkages between formerly separate industrial activities. The result is the formation of integrated industrial complexes in which the byproducts of one process are used as feedstocks of another. A community or network of companies in a region who chose to interact by exchanging and making use of byproducts and/or energy in such a way is defined as an industrial ecosystem. This type of technological organization provides five types of tangible benefits: 

• reduction in the use of virgin materials as resource inputs; 

• reduction in pollution; 

• increased systemic energy efficiency leading to reduced systemic energy use; 

• reduction in the volume of waste products requiring disposal (with the added benefit of preventing disposal-related pollution); and 

• increase in the amount and types of process outputs that have market value. 

In addition, the benefits of collaboration can be expected to spill over into other areas. 

This thesis endeavors to explain the evolutionary development of industrial ecosystems and to provide a model of the processes and factors that affect their creation. The most advanced implementation of the industrial ecosystem concept can be found in the Danish industrial town of Kalundborg. Accordingly, this thesis contains an extensive case study of its development, based on a study visit by the author. Existing attempts to create the artifacts of industrial symbiosis are identified and evaluated, including the Zero Emissions Research Initiative based in Japan and the Eco-Industrial Park project in the United States. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act regulates the management of solid waste, and this regulatory structure creates barriers to the reuse of byproducts in the United States. These difficulties are explored and policy and regulatory solutions are offered. The exchange of byproducts as feedstocks takes place within a broader context of cooperation among businesses. The thesis canvasses the emergent field of Inter-Firm Collaboration (also known as Flexible Manufacturing Networks), and applies the highly relevant resulting insight to the development of industrial ecosystems. 

Finally, the foregoing experience is consolidated to form a holistic model of industrial ecosystem development, drawing on technological, economic, regulatory, and cultural factors. 

Thesis Supervisor: Dr. John Ehrenfeld 

Title: Senior Lecturer, Technology and Policy Program 

Director, Technology, Business, and Environment Program 

Acknowledgments 

Thanks go to many people. To John Ehrenfeld, for a long list of things, such as taking me under his wing, letting me run with the symbiosis idea, sending me to Denmark, challenging me at every turn, and for taking me seriously but not too seriously. I've been told that a young man needs a mentor, and John has been that and more. 

This research would not have been possible without the generous cooperation and assistance of many people. Thanks go out to everyone next to whose name in the footnotes the words "personal communication" appear. Valdemar Christensen of Asnæs Power Plant in Kalundborg was the quintessential generous host (see page 140 for details), and his hospitality and helpfulness, coupled with that of others in that town of lore, were of determining importance in getting this research off the ground. Ernie Lowe was a constant source of information and conversation, a genie at the other end of the line who is putting all this and more into practice. The vast majority of the information contained herein was obtained through personal contacts, so all those who were contacted can barely be thanked enough. 

Thanks to the M.I.T. Technology and Policy Program and all of its participants for a memorable and enjoyable two years and for making graduate school much more fun than I expected. 

Last, but certainly not least, thanks to my parents, without whom none of this would have been possible. 

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