Kalundborg Eco-industrial Park - As A Model

As A Model

Kalundborg was the first example of separate industries grouping together to gain competitive advantage by material exchange, energy exchange, information exchange, and/or product exchange. The very term, Industrial Symbiosis (IS) was first defined by a station manager in Kalundborg as "a cooperation between different industries by which the presence of each…increases the viability of the others, and by which the demans of society for resource savings and environmental protection are considered" .

Kalundborg's success helped generate interest in industrial symbiosis. Developed nations such as the United States began to formulate incentives for corporations to implement materials exchange with other corporations. Industrial and political circles began to look into implementation of eco-industrial parks (EIPs). Specifically, the United States worked to put into service several planned EIPs. The U.S President's Council on Sustainable Development in 1996 proposed fifteen eco-industrial parks to pursue the idea of industrial symbiosis. These parks were created by grouping diverse stakeholders with common material flows together, with added governmental incentives to encourage materials exchange. The goal of these planned EIPs was to test if the idustrial symbiosis that worked so well in Kalundborg could be replicated. The Council on Sustainable Development also defined 5 major characteristics of a successful EIP to help guide EIP development. These characteristics include: (1) some form of material exchange between multiple separate entities, (2) industries within close proximity to each other, (3) cooperation between plant management of the different corporations, (4) an existing infrastructure for material sharing that does not require much retooling, and (5) "anchor" tenants (large corporation with resources to support early implementation. Devens Regional Enterprise Zone is a good example of a successful EIP in the United States.

Kalundborg became an attractive topic in academia as well because of the obvious sustainability advantages of industrial symbiosis. Research conducted on planning and implementation of eco-industrial parks revealed interesting results. Experts argued over the idea of "planned parks" versus "self organized parks". Research showed systematic failure of forced or planned EIPs. Most successful EIPs originate from industrial symbiosis that occurs naturally during industry life, much like the Kalundborg case. This conclusion served to deflate the momentum that the success of Kalundborg generated. Organizations began to recognize the difficulties associated with forcing eco-industrial parks to coalesce and abandoned the idea.