More than 75 business owners, directors and senior managers gathered at the latest finditinbirmingham breakfast meeting to hear from NISP (National Industrial Symbiosis Programme), A&R Recycling Ltd and Birmingham City Council.

Peter Levett and Kym Miller from NISP explained the economic potential of harnessing wasted natural resources to the attendees at the Birmingham Hippodrome on Thursday 2 February.

NISP’s free services have generated millions of pounds of savings for around 13,000 members, through initiatives such as landfill diversion and CO2 emission reductions.

Brian Robinson from A&R Recycling UK Ltd illustrated why his local tyre recycling company is one of the most successful and forward-thinking businesses in the city.

The rubber reclamation expert outlined the modern processes involved with tyre recycling and how new technologies – such as gasification and pyrolysis – can divert waste from landfill and avoid the expense of landfill tax.

Delegates also heard from Birmingham City Council’s Business Development Manager for Fleet & Waste Management, Jill Roe, and made new contacts with potential buyers and suppliers in a busy open networking session with exhibition stands, displays and a complimentary breakfast.

View or download the NISP and A&R Recycling presentations here.

“We were delighted to share our experiences with so many interested people,” said Brian Robinson of A&R Recycling. “The benefits we’ve achieved by using new technology and finding innovative solutions to waste management problems, which NISP were instrumental in setting up, can also be enjoyed by many other companies, whether their main business is recycling and waste management or not. We also had the opportunity to explain how our services deliver cost-effective and efficient solutions for our clients, so finditinbirmingham has been very useful for our business.”

The next finditinbirmingham breakfast meeting, themed around customer services, will take place on Thursday 3 March and places can be booked online today. Breakfast meetings are free for Premium or Corporate Members or £10 +VAT for basic members, so – if you’re not a Premium Member yet – you can upgrade today. For more information about the waste and recycling presenters from February’s breakfast meeting, see the NISP website, call A&R Recycling Ltd on 07810 758307 or visit the Birmingham City Council website.

Article by find it in birmingham

“Industrial symbiosis” is a grand name for something simple: one company using another’s waste for some useful purpose.

Read the full article here http://tinyurl.com/7l92fz4  Written by Ben Shiller for Co.Exist

NISP describes its purpose as “encouraging companies to look beyond their traditional physical and sector boundaries in the pursuit of creating a sustainable economy”.

Generated £900m of new sales

In practice, NISP has saved its 13,000 members more than £860m, generated £900m of new sales, eliminated more than two million tonnes of hazardous waste and boosted the UK economy by at least £1.5bn since it was launched in 2005.

The award-winning organisation has done so by introducing modern technologies and techniques – such as biofuels, anaerobic digestion and reuse and recycling initiatives – to traditional industries as well as more innovative sectors.

Free to businesses of all sizes

NISP’s services are free to businesses of all sizes, in all sectors. Its experts have worked with major names including Shell, Michelin and Tarmac as well as SMEs and micro-businesses.

We were delighted to bring NISP’s services to the attention of our members at finditinbirmingham’s February breakfast meeting. If you weren’t there, you can learn more on the NISP website. And make sure you’re at our next meeting!

Much of current activity from governments around the world is focused on addressing the problems created by the debt crisis. Whilst all governments acknowledge the need for growth, there is a real shortage of practical initiatives to drive the green growth that is essential for many economies to recover. IWCAIS 2012 will focus on the application of industrial symbiosis, described by the OECD as “systemic innovation vital for future green growth” and the development of a series of action plans to help address urgent global issues.

For further information on IWCAIS 2012 please contact: iwcais@international-synergies.com

When we think of waste, we think of something that is of no use. We usually associate the term with solid waste; the kind we send ‘away’ to one of our many growing mountains of unwanted matter. Though if we look beyond solid waste and start questioning whether waste really is something of no use, we find some interesting things.

A car is of no use to you until you need to drive somewhere, so technically when it is parked it is waste. Furthermore, if something is of no use to someone, it doesn’t mean there is no use for it elsewhere. In fact, it probably has value. When you don’t need a car, chances are someone else does. These insights form the basis of two ideas shaping the way we manage waste in cities today.

The Rise of Collaborative Consumption

People the world over are starting to realise that one does not necessarily need to own something, but rather simply have access to it. This shift to access is known as collaborative consumption - the rise of sharing, trading, and renting. The number of businesses popping up that are built on this model is evidence of collaborative consumption’s current popularity. Zipcar is just one business using this opportunity. Members of the car sharing service have access to cars parked in various parts of a city. When they need a car, they find one nearby, reserve it for a particular time, and pay only for when they use it. Cars can be unlocked and one can even honk the hooter, all from a smartphone.

Similar services provide access to other types of things that are not always of use. Recently launched Spinlister allows people to share and find bicycles that aren’t being used. NeighborGoods allows communities to share all sorts of rarely used things like electric drills and lawnmowers. Airbnb has gained tremendous popularity as a platform for people to rent out rooms that aren’t being used.

For more information on the rise of collaborative consumption, read Rachel Botsman’s book What’s Mine is Yours or watch her TED Talk.

The Rise of Industrial Symbiosis

Whilst collaborative consumption deals with things that are temporarily of no use, a growing approach in industry deals with waste that is of no further use to a particular party. This waste may be of no further use to one party, but may have potential to be of value to other parties. This idea is driving the practice of industrial symbiosis, where byproducts of one process become the inputs of another. Not only is waste stopped from becoming just that, but the process often reduces costs and prevents unnecessary environmental degradation.

The concept is built on natural ecosystems, where nothing goes to waste. One growing practice is that of taking exhaust heat from one process, and using it where heat is needed. Heat may be used in another process, or it may simply be used to heat a building. One particular business doing extraordinary things with industrial symbiosis is Calera. They have learned from coral reefs, developing a way to capture CO2 from processes like coal fired power plants, and using it to create cement. As the materials they create can absorb CO2, they have the potential to reduce an emitter’s emissions by more than 100 percent.

The approaches mentioned above may seem new, but they’re essentially built on life’s principle that nothing goes to waste. We have a long way to go, but we are certainly seeing a shift towards urban systems that work more like ecosystems.

17 Sustainable Ideas for COP17 is collaboration between This Big City and Future Cape Town running alongside the United Nations Climate Change Conference from November 28th to December 9th.

Aticle by thisbigcity

The Solution

The filter cake produced in the effluent treatment plant at DENSO has a 70% moisture content. IS:NET recommended implementing an on-site solution using waste heat from the company’s  manufacturing systems to dry the cake, making it suitable for use in an alternative processes. The new system has reduced transportation and the material is now used in three additional processes, significantly impacting on the company’s carbon footprint. Once dried, the product is sent to another company, where it is crushed for use as an active agent in the absorption of oil and solvent. This agent is then employed as a fuel source, before the residual ash is added to aggregates or put to work as a soil improver.

Results

• Reduction of 18 tonnes of waste filter cake by drying it and reducing moisture content of the cake;
• Cost saving of £5000 as a result of waste minimisation (reduced quantity of cake to be disposed of) and transport;
• Road transport requirements were reduced by 200 miles per year.

Company Background

DENSO Manufacturing UK is based in Telford, Shropshire.  The company manufactures air conditioning units, engine cooling systems and components for the automotive industry, working with household names such as Toyota, Honda and Jaguar Land Rover.

Sustainability is a key focus for the company, so once it achieved its zero waste to landfill target it began to look more closely at reducing rawmaterial usage and waste generation.

IS:NET Intervention

International Synergies first began working with DENSO Manufacturing UK through its National Industrial Symbiosis Programme that works closely with Telford’s BESST business group. Being based in the West Midlands resulted in the company being invited to be a participant in IS:NET project which works with businesses to improve resource efficiency and economic growth.  DENSO Manufacturing UK attended a number of the project’s ‘Resource Data Capture’ workshops as well as benefiting from on-site visits and practitioner support that involved looking at all manufacturing processes in order to identify ways in which to further eradicate waste at source and effective recovery, reprocessing and reuse options when waste was unavoidable.

Being part of IS:NET has resulted in exposure to expertise and solutions available enabling us to identify a beneficial waste reduction process on our own premises.

Manel Roura,Environmental Officer, DENSO

Replacing the traditional linear approach to resource use can cut the costs associated with waste disposal, spare virgin resources and reduce emissions, delegates at Green Week were told. “The concept of waste should be eliminated in the future,” said Monika Griefahn, a former German MP who now heads an environmental consultancy.

“In the long run we don’t need to be efficient or save anything, because everything should go back to the lifecycle. Everything is useful.” Monika Griefahn

Ms Griefahn is working with European companies to implement a ‘cradle to cradle’ approach mimicking nature’s circular processes.This could mean composting old T-shirts to fertilise new cotton plants or a more industrial approach, she said. The Herman Miller office chair used widely in EU institutions, for example, is easily taken apart and the parts reused or remanufactured to make new chairs.

Industrial Symbiosis

Peter Laybourn of UK- based consultancy International Synergies presented the concept of ‘industrial symbiosis’, which brings companies together to make best use of each others’ by- products and waste. Examples include waste heat from a chemicals plant being fed into greenhouses to grow tomatoes year round, and a project in Romania where 20 SMEs grouped together to supply food waste to a chipboard factory, saving forest area and helping preserve local jobs. Six years of verified data from England’s National Industrial Symbiosis Programme shows the companies involved jointly saved 35 million tonnes of CO2 and €1 billion, he said. The project has returned €9 to the government for every €1 invested. Markus Andersen of Kalludborg, the world’s oldest industrial symbiosis project, presented similar results.

The session also featured a presentation by Markus Bjerre of green business models. ‘Green Business Models in the Nordic Region’ – a project initiated by the Nordic Council of Ministers – gathers economic and environmental knowledge about these models, which often involve ‘Product Service Systems’ that provide customers with a mix of products and services tailored to their needs. He showed how the switch from selling products per se to selling service systems that include products alters the relations between suppliers and customers, encouraging suppliers to innovate and become more sustainable.

The broader dissemination of these green business models will require wider understanding, supportive and coordinated government policies, and a change of mindset among companies and the public sector, he said.

Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik shared the experts’ enthusiasm, “There are many innovative business models out there that have found a way to use resources efficiently,” he told the delegates. “Industrial Symbiosis, product service systems and cradle-to-cradle need to become widespread.”

 The Roadmap, officially launched by the European Commissioner for the Environment Janez Potočnik, outlines how Europe can generate resource efficient growth and create a sustainable economy by 2050 and suggests tools and indicators to help guide action in Europe and internationally. It aims to develop a policy framework where innovation and resource efficiency are rewarded, creating economic opportunities and improved security of supply through product redesign, sustainable management of environmental resources, greater reuse, recycling and substitution of materials and resource savings.

 The Roadmap states:

Exchanging information on routes to resource efficiency between partners in value chains and across sections, including SMEs, can prevent waste, boost innovation and create new markets. A number of schemes show the benefits of increased information flows, and the payback from providing advice or bringing firms together in National Industrial Symbiosis Platforms: Based on the performance of the UK National Industrial Symbiosis Programme, improving the re-use of raw materials through greater ‘industrial symbiosis’ across the EU could save 1.4bn a year and generate 1.6bn in sales.

 The figures used derive from a report commissioned by DG Enterprise entitled, Economic Analysis of Resource Efficiency Policies. The report reviewed and analysed 120 resource efficiency initiatives from 23 countries to identify policies that have most successfully optimised the use of resources and can provide a blueprint for replication across Europe. Of the initiatives reviewed, NISP was shortlisted for more detailed assessment and was subsequently identified as providing the highest economic benefit to the companies involved and achieving environmental benefits at least cost.

The report looked at the success of NISP in the UK between April 2005 and March 2011 and also stated:

The resource efficiency policies with the highest economic benefit for the companies are those to which national authorities make substantial economic contributions. NISP is a good example of this.

 I am delighted that the European Commission has written industrial symbiosis into the Roadmap, especially citing NISP as the most successful example of practical implementation of industrial symbiosis, explains Peter Laybourn, Chief Executive of International Synergies and founder of NISP.

 Industrial symbiosis already has a proven track record of job creation, innovation and bringing substantial gross value added (GVA) to the UK economy, at a time when there is little or no growth in many of Europe’s economies.

 We have been championing the role industrial symbiosis has to play in the development of the green economy for many years, and welcome Commissioner Potočnik’s support which follows the OECD’s recognition last year that it provides a form of systemic innovation that is vital for future green growth.

 Since establishing NISP back in 2005, International Synergies has gone on to work with partners in China, Mexico, Brazil, Romania, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, South Africa and Turkey to establish industrial symbiosis networks adapted from the implementation model used here in the UK.

 The public investment model of industrial symbiosis pioneered by Laybourn has resulted in widespread take up by industry (14,000 participating companies in the UK) which in turn has resulted in substantial economic and environmental returns for the UK, including a substantial rate of return for the government and the creation of thousands of jobs.

 With input from experienced practitioner teams and industry participants around the world International Synergies has developed a range of proven support tools, manuals and systems that can be used to support the development of industrial symbiosis networks either at regional, multi-regional or national level.

With such extensive knowledge of establishing these networks we look forward to contributing further to the Roadmap across Europe.

 NISP’s role as a driver of innovation is also acknowledged in the Roadmap:

 Innovation does not only rely on technologies but also on “softer” innovations such as those related to new business models or new process for example. Although the understanding and policy support to such types of innovation are less developed, they also have a significant potential, for example in delivery of the circular economy, as testified by the successful case of the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme.

 For more information on International Synergies and its worldwide portfolio of industrial symbiosis projects or to arrange an interview with Peter Laybourn contact Maggie Morrissey on 07968 997141 or email: maggie.morrissey@international-synergies.com