356
our participating industries operate and also the targets within SPIRE. The question
is: what are the barriers to achieving this? The project sees three major challenges
to existing business models:
– This low-carbon future requires developments of new approaches and public
engagement that can be effective in delivering business solutions at the park
level. Some of the benefi cial opportunities are already available and could be
implemented now within existing industrial clusters. What is needed is a culture
change to think and work cross-sectorally. This process is not easy and will need
stimulus but is essentially one of knowledge transfer. The mechanism is one of
allowing normal business drivers to effect change once opportunities are visualised. The establishment of ‘Synergy Management Services’ organisations is
probably the best way to go. These need to be led by the park operator or by the
industrial cluster with support from the local public sector with an interest in
sustainability themselves.
– The second barrier lies beyond industrialists, engineers and business owners and
relates to local and national government and planning. A new investment is not
best served by offering location at a number of greenfi eld sites, rather by the
optimum integration with existing facilities. The answer to a low-carbon economy is a thermodynamic one, and planning needs to allow for this, even to the
extent of (physically) linking, for example, the chemical and food industries.
Policies need to be created which encourage such developments.
– The third barrier is that some of the opportunities are not economic under the
existing landscape. This becomes a societal and a political issue. What is the
price of carbon? If we really want a low-carbon economy, how do we introduce
measures that deliver the low-carbon benefi ts without disadvantaging European
manufacturing within a global playing fi eld? The fundamental issue is that, given
a brief to design the most economic system, the outcome will be different from
designing the lowest carbon system. The work shows that we have the engineering capability to deliver low-carbon systems; the question is a societal one as to
whether we have the will and understanding to change the rules to align economic and environmental performance.
Can we go so far as to say we have the ingredients for a new industrial revolution? Does delivering low-carbon manufacturing within the landscape of ‘closing
loops’ contribute to this? What is the future role of the waste industry? The
LOCIMAP project sought to inform opinion on all these points. It goes beyond the
bilateral synergies rightly documented as exemplars to a much more strategic
approach to energy and resource effi ciency that demands that the requirement for a
low-carbon industry inform primary planning and design specifi cations.
So the question is: what do we need to do to deliver a low-carbon manufacturing
park? The answer is not ‘green’, or ‘42’; it’s thermodynamic! The task is to communicate this to policymakers and to translate these principles back to the source of
their inspiration: concrete experience from the contributing industrial parks of
Tarragona, Wilton, Kokkola and Kalundborg and of course to the Humber.
M. Bailey and A. Gadd
our participating industries operate and also the targets within SPIRE. The question
is: what are the barriers to achieving this? The project sees three major challenges
to existing business models:
– This low-carbon future requires developments of new approaches and public
engagement that can be effective in delivering business solutions at the park
level. Some of the benefi cial opportunities are already available and could be
implemented now within existing industrial clusters. What is needed is a culture
change to think and work cross-sectorally. This process is not easy and will need
stimulus but is essentially one of knowledge transfer. The mechanism is one of
allowing normal business drivers to effect change once opportunities are visualised. The establishment of ‘Synergy Management Services’ organisations is
probably the best way to go. These need to be led by the park operator or by the
industrial cluster with support from the local public sector with an interest in
sustainability themselves.
– The second barrier lies beyond industrialists, engineers and business owners and
relates to local and national government and planning. A new investment is not
best served by offering location at a number of greenfi eld sites, rather by the
optimum integration with existing facilities. The answer to a low-carbon economy is a thermodynamic one, and planning needs to allow for this, even to the
extent of (physically) linking, for example, the chemical and food industries.
Policies need to be created which encourage such developments.
– The third barrier is that some of the opportunities are not economic under the
existing landscape. This becomes a societal and a political issue. What is the
price of carbon? If we really want a low-carbon economy, how do we introduce
measures that deliver the low-carbon benefi ts without disadvantaging European
manufacturing within a global playing fi eld? The fundamental issue is that, given
a brief to design the most economic system, the outcome will be different from
designing the lowest carbon system. The work shows that we have the engineering capability to deliver low-carbon systems; the question is a societal one as to
whether we have the will and understanding to change the rules to align economic and environmental performance.
Can we go so far as to say we have the ingredients for a new industrial revolution? Does delivering low-carbon manufacturing within the landscape of ‘closing
loops’ contribute to this? What is the future role of the waste industry? The
LOCIMAP project sought to inform opinion on all these points. It goes beyond the
bilateral synergies rightly documented as exemplars to a much more strategic
approach to energy and resource effi ciency that demands that the requirement for a
low-carbon industry inform primary planning and design specifi cations.
So the question is: what do we need to do to deliver a low-carbon manufacturing
park? The answer is not ‘green’, or ‘42’; it’s thermodynamic! The task is to communicate this to policymakers and to translate these principles back to the source of
their inspiration: concrete experience from the contributing industrial parks of
Tarragona, Wilton, Kokkola and Kalundborg and of course to the Humber.
M. Bailey and A. Gadd