CREATING INDUSTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS - A VIABLE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY

Industrial ecosystems, designed ''from scratch'' to imitate nature by utilizing the waste products of each component company as raw material s - or ''food'' - are an attractive theoretical idea. As yet they are mostly at the proposal stage. It is important to stress that process c hanges to take advantage of ''returns-to-closure'' (of the materials c ycle) - are very definitely not another version of ''end-of-pipe'' tre atment of wastes. Is this an idea whose time has come? This paper exam ines a number of such proposals and considers the prerequisites for su ccess. It appears that there are several: first, a fairly large scale of operation is required. This means that at least one first tier 'exp orter' must be present to achieve the necessary scale. Second, at leas t one other major firm (or industrial sector) must be present locally to utilize the major waste of the exporter, after conversion to a usef ul form. Third, one or more specialized ''satellite'' firms will be re quired to convert the wastes of the first tier 'exporter' into useful raw materials for the consumer, and to convert the latter's wastes int o marketable commodities, secondary inputs to other local firms, or fi nal wastes for disposal. A final condition, of great importance (and d ifficult to achieve in practice) is that a reliable mechanism be estab lished to ensure close and long-term technical cooperation - i.e, info rmation sharing - among the participating firms. The guarantor of this cooperation must be either the first tier 'exporter' itself, a major bank, a major marketing organization, or a public agency. The detailed mechanisms by which it can be achieved in practice remain to be worke d out.