Fresh boost to industrial symbiosis in Europe
EIT Climate-KIC has teamed up with five partners to increase the uptake of industrial symbiosis across Europe, building partnerships between industries to use production wastes as resources.
The new platform, SCALER, (SCALing European Resources with industrial symbiosis) has been launched to help industrial sites work together to share and reuse resources and raw materials, with the objective of reducing industrial emissions and boosting economic prosperity.
The European process industry (for materials such as cement, metals and plastics) is one of the main pillars of Europe’s economy. But today, this industry is energy and resource intensive, with significant carbon emissions and a high dependence on resource availability.
A systemic approach is needed to address this – not only by recycling at factory level, but also at industry level. Manufacturing processes need to be viewed as part of a larger picture, taking into consideration waste treatment and management, energy use and materials sourcing.
Industrial symbiosis offers a wealth of advantages for various stakeholders, ranging from cost savings for businesses, to greener cities and regions, positively impacting both industrial sites and the ecosystems around them.
The SCALER online platform aims to provide essential guides and tools on industrial symbiosis, helping businesses increase their efficiency through mutual resource sharing, and share important information and data on the economic, environmental and social impacts of adopting circular industrial systems.
Climate-KIC will leverage its network and community, engaging directly with partners and businesses to assess existing success stories in industrial symbiosis and identify needs for scale-up.
Under the European Union’s Horizon2020 initiative, the project will also develop a set of best practices and recommendations to support industries transition to more sustainable, eco-friendly and cost-effective production systems.
Over the next two and a half years, SCALER aims to assess 1000 potential industrial synergies, support 30 regions in transitioning to industrial symbiosis practices and raise awareness of 500 industrial sites.
SCALER is a pan-European partnership between ISQ, Strane Innovation, the University of Cambridge, Quantis and Climate-KIC.
For more information please visit http://www.scalerproject.eu/get-involved
Or follow us on Twitter @SCALERProject
or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/scalerproject/
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