Cascading to a Greener Tomorrow

Mother Nature has developed a diverse, interconnected ecosystem over millennia. Instead of re-inventing it, we can see it as a template to revolutionize the relationships an industry builds around its products and waste.

Photo by Todd Diemer on Unsplash

Typical manufacturing today operates in independent silos, with a linear progression for its products: resource extraction, production, consumption, and waste. As demand increases - driving up production - so too does resource extraction and waste.   

Industrial symbiosis partially eliminates these resource extraction and waste steps from the process. By redirecting waste and resources from one such silo to another, we can form larger, interconnected systems that work together. This method of cascading resources across industries is an effective way to “green” the current linear economy while transitioning into a circular system. 

Photo by Morten Hornum on Unsplash

The Kalundborg Symbiosis in Denmark, touted as the world’s first industrial symbiosis, shows the process at work. Multiple public and private sectors of the city work together in an extraordinary example of full resource utilization, harnessing each partner’s water, energy and material flows to close the loop on the system as a whole.

“Multiple public and private sectors of the city work together...to close the loop on the system as a whole”

In addition to their amazing resource management, the Kalundborg Symbiosis also strives to share their wealth of knowledge. As just one of many examples from them, Project Ô aims to help accelerate the conversion to a more sustainable use of water by providing the toolkit to plan its use, no matter where it comes from. By leveraging local, small loops of water management in an area, they reduce both the need for water treatment and the expulsion of wastewater into green water sources.  

It’s these precious water sources, along with our natural resources that need to be maintained. Systems like the Kalundborg Symbiosis help update our perspective on just what we can do even in small communities to make a difference. And much like the concept of a blue economy, industrial symbiosis changes the narrative on our resources and waste, giving garbage a whole new look.