93
3.2 Single Industry Dominated vs. Multiple Industry
Involvement
The 1990s was a time when great effort went into creating bounded systems to
include resource sharing across organizations in eco-industrial parks and through
related constructs such as zero-waste projects, by-product synergy, or integrated
biosystems (IBS). Just as there was a convergence in 1989 with the article by Frosch
and Gallopoulos and the revelation of Kalundborg , convergent in 1995 were environmental engineer Nelson Nemerow’s book, Zero Pollution for Industry: Waste
Minimization Through Industrial Complexes , and the fi rst peer-reviewed journal
article relating to industrial symbiosis appearing in the scientifi c literature,
“Industrial Ecology and Industrial Ecosystems” by Ernest Lowe and Laurence
Evans, in the Journal of Cleaner Production . Nemerow imagined the creation of a
system of environmentally balanced “industrial complexes” where companies in the
complex consume each other’s by-products as a means of increasing production
effi ciency and reducing waste. Since 1992, Lowe and colleagues at Indigo
Development along with Professor Ray Côté and colleagues at Dalhousie University
in Nova Scotia and Cornell University’s former Work and Environment Initiative
led by Ed Cohen-Rosenthal formalized the concept of the eco-industrial park. By
1994, the US EPA had hired Lowe and Indigo, along with the Research Triangle
Institute staff, to develop the concept further.
Notably, the examples of Nemerow’s environmentally balanced industrial complexes were rooted in individual industries such as pulp and paper, sugar refi ning,
and textile complexes. In these bounded systems, Nemerow described the wealth of
potential resource sharing opportunities that could be usefully implemented by
related industrial operations. In contrast, Lowe and colleagues were envisioning
business clusters populated by many unrelated fi rms thereby creating opportunities
for sharing the inputs and outputs from a diverse array of facilities in eco-industrial
parks that would foster economic cooperation, environmental improvement, and
community benefi t. It was understood that if fi rms had a high diversity of inputs and
outputs rather than uniformity, there would be numerous new business opportunities
based on reuse of by-products. This distinction of “single-industry dominated clusters” and “multiple industry clusters” is an important one. What Kalundborg , Lowe,
and other projects and colleagues demonstrated was the potential involvement of
many, diverse industries and outcomes in one geography.
3.3 Industrial Symbiosis and Eco-industrial Parks (EIPs)
While the section above discusses different lineages of more traditional singleindustry dominated industrial complexes and the broader diversity within ecoindustrial parks, resource sharing occurs in both. Another important element in
sorting out concepts of industrial symbiosis is reexamining its relationship to
5 Scholarship and Practice in Industrial Symbiosis: 1989–2014
3.2 Single Industry Dominated vs. Multiple Industry
Involvement
The 1990s was a time when great effort went into creating bounded systems to
include resource sharing across organizations in eco-industrial parks and through
related constructs such as zero-waste projects, by-product synergy, or integrated
biosystems (IBS). Just as there was a convergence in 1989 with the article by Frosch
and Gallopoulos and the revelation of Kalundborg , convergent in 1995 were environmental engineer Nelson Nemerow’s book, Zero Pollution for Industry: Waste
Minimization Through Industrial Complexes , and the fi rst peer-reviewed journal
article relating to industrial symbiosis appearing in the scientifi c literature,
“Industrial Ecology and Industrial Ecosystems” by Ernest Lowe and Laurence
Evans, in the Journal of Cleaner Production . Nemerow imagined the creation of a
system of environmentally balanced “industrial complexes” where companies in the
complex consume each other’s by-products as a means of increasing production
effi ciency and reducing waste. Since 1992, Lowe and colleagues at Indigo
Development along with Professor Ray Côté and colleagues at Dalhousie University
in Nova Scotia and Cornell University’s former Work and Environment Initiative
led by Ed Cohen-Rosenthal formalized the concept of the eco-industrial park. By
1994, the US EPA had hired Lowe and Indigo, along with the Research Triangle
Institute staff, to develop the concept further.
Notably, the examples of Nemerow’s environmentally balanced industrial complexes were rooted in individual industries such as pulp and paper, sugar refi ning,
and textile complexes. In these bounded systems, Nemerow described the wealth of
potential resource sharing opportunities that could be usefully implemented by
related industrial operations. In contrast, Lowe and colleagues were envisioning
business clusters populated by many unrelated fi rms thereby creating opportunities
for sharing the inputs and outputs from a diverse array of facilities in eco-industrial
parks that would foster economic cooperation, environmental improvement, and
community benefi t. It was understood that if fi rms had a high diversity of inputs and
outputs rather than uniformity, there would be numerous new business opportunities
based on reuse of by-products. This distinction of “single-industry dominated clusters” and “multiple industry clusters” is an important one. What Kalundborg , Lowe,
and other projects and colleagues demonstrated was the potential involvement of
many, diverse industries and outcomes in one geography.
3.3 Industrial Symbiosis and Eco-industrial Parks (EIPs)
While the section above discusses different lineages of more traditional singleindustry dominated industrial complexes and the broader diversity within ecoindustrial parks, resource sharing occurs in both. Another important element in
sorting out concepts of industrial symbiosis is reexamining its relationship to
5 Scholarship and Practice in Industrial Symbiosis: 1989–2014