Biji Kurup Dr.

At Bantaeng in South Sulawesi and Kwinana in Western Australia new industrial scale ports will be built to serve the industrial precincts at these locations. At both these sites a 12Mtpa Geopolymer Concrete/cement? (GPC) plant is proposed for precast production of some 1,600 port modules as well as other infrastructure requiring some 750,000 cubic metre of (cum) of concrete and thereafter the plant can be repurposed for other products for local markets such as reef modules and wall panels. Geopolymer concrete can be the replacement for conventional concrete and be made from waste ceases to be waste based on specif conditions (waste-derived materials) while having a lower carbon footprint. The plant is designed to be operated by renewable energy and an energy audit estimated that a 1metric tonne per annum (Mtpa) geopolymer production plant needs up to 200 Gigawhatt hour (GWh) per annum (pa) to operate. This could be served by 6-10 onland wind turbines combined with solar PV farm at a total cost 4555 million USD. The electricity generated around 100/MWh was worth 12-20M pa that could result in a payback of 2-5 years. In Kwinana, planning is already underway for a large wind farm as part of the overall decarbonisation strategy for this industrial precinct. Feedstock materials can be harnessed for use in the geopolymer production plant by means of Circularity Hubs. These hubs can be established through the KIC4 and 6-Capitals models of Industrial Symbiosis to optimise the proposed geopolymer plant within the industrial precincts at Bantaeng and Kwinana. Such an approach can contribute to Regenerative Development when both ports are built.

Waste generated from the construction and demolition sector continues to increase over time, and this negligence poses a severe threat to the environment. Reusing and recycling construction and demolition waste-derived materials must be the priority for resource sustainability and achieving a Circular Economy (CE). Many studies demonstrate that recycled concrete aggregates from demolished buildings can be used in various engineering applications. Still, there is little research to assess the environmental impact and sustainability of the product using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) techniques. Current specifications in Western Australia require a majority (80%-90%) of the recycled base in road construction to be concrete. LCA techniques are essential to evaluate the environmental performance and sustainability of producing recycled materials in the construction and demolition industry.

The study compared the environmental impacts of the processes involved in producing Recycled Concrete Aggregate (RCA) from demolition waste and Business as Usual (BAU) cases for road construction using LCA techniques for case-specific and primarily sourced data. The results indicate that with 100% RCA used in road bases, a significant carbon emission reduction of almost 95% was observed. While only a 55% reduction was achieved when replacing the BAU scenario with 70% RCA and 30 %NA. However, if the RCA processing involves significant transportation distances and more electricity consumption, then a reduction in environmental impacts from the project is unlikely.

The findings prove that data collection, location, in-situ utilization of the recycled materials, and backhaul plans are the ideal components for CE in the recycling industry. Further investigation on a similar topic is needed to understand recycled products’ environmental impacts and sustainability so policymakers can be informed when legislating the necessary regulations and guidelines.

With an extensive presence in the world of Industrial Symbiosis literature, the Kwinana industrial area in Perth, Western Australia is a powerhouse of integrated heavy industrial activity. From when its first entrant arrived in 1955, development has been strong, and now it presents a complex industrial cluster with a wide range of industrial enterprises present, ranging from several major industrial multi-product manufacturers to those filling niche markets. Formal reporting of its economic contribution has occurred periodically over 40 yr, with one of the features of this being a series of four earlier iterations, and in this paper, the fifth, of a schematic diagram that identifies the enterprises engaged in symbiotic relationships and the nature of the associated materials exchanged. While the earlier reports concentrated solely on the traditional materials exchanges, the present study (data collected in 2021) went beyond these to gather additional data on what the authors are proposing as additional dimensions of the traditional Industrial Symbiosis framework. Aspects of Kwinana's skilled workforce, its support industry base, and its overlying governance framework were studied to provide insights into what role they play in explaining why some industrial clusters appear to provide a supportive business environment, and why other clusters struggle to gain momentum. The new study identified that the novel posited dimensions of Industrial Symbiosis are interlinked at the precinct level, and that at the macro (societal) level, they combine to contribute to the effectiveness of the Circular Economy.

Industrial enterprises around the world are grappling with greenhouse gas emission reduction expectations, whether being driven by respective government policy for climate change or by shareholders to drive corporate sustainability through maintaining access to their 'net zero'-demanding markets. In some instances, the enterprises co-located within complex industrial areas are coming together to face the common carbon reduction challenge as a collective. The Kwinana Industrial Area in Perth, Western Australia is well regarded on the world's stage as a successful integrated heavy industrial precinct, presenting as an extensive, complex, and broad-based example of Industrial Symbiosis. In earlier papers, the authors have posited a novel four-dimensional framework to expand the definition of Industrial Symbiosis to be used to understand why one industrial precinct may be more successful for its resident industries to operate within than another, and for application in the design of new industrial areas. The four dimensions are described as Materials Exchange, Skilled Workforce, Support Industry, and Governance. Through the lens of climate change literature and policy frameworks, we investigate the governance dimension and industry's response to the contemporary climate challenge. The outputs of the paper include a literature review of the governance dimension, and a description of the cascading nature of climate change policy from global through to the enterprise level. We illustrate how climate change governance is enhanced in practice by detailing how the enterprises in Kwinana collectively responded to the global requirement for carbon reduction, achieved through the facilitative governance-based intervention of their industry association, the Kwinana Industries Council. Exploring this in-practice example helped to consolidate the hypothesis that successful industrial symbiosis is about positive relationships across several dimensions building towards improved Circular Economy outcomes.

The traditional definitions of Industrial Symbiosis broadly describe it as a symbiotic relationship between enterprises usually operating in close geographic proximity within an industrial precinct where the reduction of waste and by-products through re-use of these materials is the goal, and is more recently described within the broader construct of Circular Economy. But there is more to a successful industrial precinct than simply the business-to-business relationships associated with these by-product material exchanges. The literature is slowly beginning to explore the presence of various forces that also have a role to play. The novelty of this research is that these forces have been explicitly identified as being a mix of four relationship-based synergies. These were identified and crystallized through a series of four sequential papers, and provisionally grouped under four headings, or dimensions; Materials Exchange, Skilled Workforce, Support Industry, and Governance. The purpose of the research was to develop a model which could be used to create a dimensional profile for any given industrial precinct. For each of these dimensions, a set of five influencing factors were identified, and collectively they were used to build a profile for a given industrial precinct. Analysis of the dimensional influencing factors was expected to deliver insights into the extent to which they may or may not be impacting the performance of the enterprise actors located within it. Respondents from four distinct groups associated with the precincts (policy makers, precinct managers, enterprise managers and representative groups) were selected for the research and were asked to characterise their precincts by rating each set of dimensional influencing factors. The major finding of the research was that the reason for the relative strength or weakness of an industrial precinct can be described under this four-dimensional framework which has been called the KIC4 Model of Industrial Symbiosis. The evidence after testing these influencing factors in various state, national and international greenfield and brownfield precincts confirmed that the data obtained showed the interrelationships and can be used to enhance the design or re-design of complex industrial precincts to equip the existing enterprises and those considering locating within them, to achieve higher levels of circularity and production efficiency.

This paper suggests that there are wide benefits of industrial symbiosis that go beyond mere exchanges of material or energy between industries. We conclude that industrial symbiosis not only ensures physical exchange of material, energy and by-products, but also establishes the necessary linkages between parties to enable further enhancement of exchanges to occur. This paper describes a method to assess the wider benefits of industrial symbiosis to the industrial region by measuring the various capital benefits achieved. Indicators are developed and a verification of this method concludes that the framework does enable the intangible benefits associated with industrial symbiosis to be identified, analysed and integrated into a more detailed appreciation of the impacts of the symbiotic relationships underway in the case study area.