Bernd Oellermann, senior project manager of the National Cleaner Production Centre-South Africa (NCPC-SA) talks to MechChem Africa about eco-industrial parks and the symbiotic initiatives being adopted to ensure long-term economic, environmental and social sustainability.
The East London Industrial Development Zone (ELIDZ) is a flagship EIP project.
“Eco industrial parks are not just environmentally friendly. They involve embracing and balancing three key pillars – environmental, economic, and social sustainability,” begins Bernd Oellermann, senior project manager at the NCPC-SA in South Africa.
“There is no point in government and civil society talking about sustainability if we do not take industry along. But to properly introduce and translate sustainability into an industrial space, dealing with all three of these critical aspects is imperative. That is the whole point of the eco-industrial park approach, trying to assist industry to make a balanced sustainability transition that includes environmental, economic, and social components,” he explains.
He introduces a simple thermodynamic perspective: “In any closed system, resources are limited. In a chemical reaction, for example, the reaction can only continue until one or more of the reactants runs out. Then the reaction stops.
“Our planet is facing this issue. It has a limited number of resources we can extract. Based on scientific calculations, we know that we cannot expect to continue using those resources in the same way we have always done. We must become smarter about how industries use the resources they need to manufacture products. But industry needs assistance in making this change,” argues Oellermann.
“The amazing ‘side-effect’ of adopting resource efficiency, though, is that it has a direct impact on the competitiveness of industry. Even in the shorter term, costs can be reduced, profitability improved, and economic sustainability secured,” he assures.
Looking at energy alone, he cites an industrial symbiosis programme that the NCPC-SA ran with GreenCape a few years ago for a producer of plastic products in the Western Cape. “In just two years, the monthly electricity bill was reduced by 70%. And, if I recall correctly, the bill was not that high to begin with. But this shows just how much cost saving potential there is, even for SMEs,” he says.
“And if these kinds of savings could be replicated at significant numbers of industrial sites, imagine the positive impact this would have on our ailing electricity grid?” he asks.
Energy and water, he continues, are inter-related imperatives for South Africa. They are typically the primary resources of concern for South African industry and a key target for NCPC-SA initiatives. “We first try to improve production efficiency with respect to energy and water before moving on to look at material resource use, because the materials often link back to the design process of a product, so changes require a more intensive engagement with engineering and design,” he explains.
“In food production, though, we talk about the food-water-energy nexus. Water consumption is so important in South Africa because our average country wide rainfall is low, in the order of about 400-450 mm per year, on average, which makes South Africa a water scarce country. The Department of Water and Sanitation projects that, by 2030, unless we improve our consumption behaviour, we are going to have a 17% shortfall in fresh water needs across the country – and 2030 is just around the corner,” he points out.
But there are a range of initiatives being implemented in this area. “We are losing between 30 and 40% of our potable water through leaks,” he points out. “If we could just reduce that by half, we would be well placed to avoid the 2030 shortfall. We are also working with the industries dependant on water, such as the textiles industry, for example, to improve their usage and water recovery rates, and with agriculture, which uses between 60 and 70% of the available freshwater resources in South Africa.
Eco-Industrial Parks (EIPs)
The NCPC-SA looks at parks that are zoned for industrial activity. The smallest estates might have 20 companies, while some of the larger ones can cover 1 000 ha and have hundreds of businesses from micro to macro in size. Oellermann cites Wadeville – which includes companies such as MacSteel, Scaw Metals, Protea Chemicals and many more – as a typical example of a large industrial estate.
“The Eco-Industrial Park (EIP) framework enables us to assist at the park level, helping industries to collaborate with each other, the local municipality, and the local community and to put in place processes that address environmental, economic and social aspects of sustainability. We strive to unlock these things in a neutral fashion, creating safe spaces where people can engage constructively for mutual benefit, so they do not get stuck on specific agendas,” he says.
“Our approach is to ask what companies and people can bring to the table, not so much about what they want to take away. This is a guiding principle of the EIP approach, and it works well in South Africa,” Oellermann believes.
When prompted for a flagship example, he cites the East London Industrial Development Zone (ELIDZ). It is a greenfield development transforming over 400 hectares of prime land into a world-class industrial location that attracts globally competitive manufacturers. “This is one of South Africa’s Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and it falls within the dtic’s SEZ programme. It is also our ‘lighthouse’ eco-industrial park in South Africa,” he notes.
Developed using support from the dtic, this park currently embraces 51 of the key components included in the global EIP framework for eco-Industrial development.
To begin, there exists a well-established governance structure headed by East London Industrial Development Zone SOC Ltd. This operational entity assumes responsibility for the supervision of the industrial park and its associated services. “Carbon emission mitigation is a key eco indicator, and this makes the ELIDZ score really high, the total score for the SEZ, according to the EIP indicators, is above 80%,” he says, as measured according to an EIP-monitoring tool developed by UNIDO for evaluating eco-industrial sites.
Describing some of the carbon mitigation initiatives, he cites the transition to renewable energy as an example. “There are several renewable energy projects currently underway. We at the NCPC-SA are supporting the implementation of rooftop solar PV, and looking at wind energy, which is implemented at park level, because East London is an ideal location for renewable wind power.”
In terms of material resources, the ELIDZ has Clariter South Africa, one of its investors dedicated to recycling initiatives. Clariter is actively engaged in collecting waste from various companies within the park, evaluating its potential for recycling and repurposing, and advancing the necessary pre-processing procedures to make the endeavour viable. “Notably, it is already processing specific types of waste plastics sourced from park-based companies, with the aim of making them available for reuse by other businesses,” he says.
From a social aspect, the ELIDZ works with the local Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality (BCMM), and collaboration is good across East London, contributing towards long-term planning of municipal services and development issues. The ELIDZ, BCMM and local universities also work with the ELIDZ Science and Technology Park (STP), which collaborates on Research & Development (R&D) for the benefit of the park’s sectors and for the city.
“The ELIDZ STP is typically looking at innovative solutions that could eventually assist in resolving local issues, be they service delivery or new innovative products improving the lives of the people. Innovation can be used for resource optimisation for the whole of Buffalo City. It provides a facility for economic development issues to be advanced in collaboration with researchers, academia, and innovators, so new solutions can be developed, piloted and commercialised,” he explains.
Many of the social aspects of the EIP are incorporated through South Africa’s relatively strong Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997, which specifies the basic conditions of employment, including the working conditions and amenities for men and women. In addition, though, other community projects such as collectively supporting the community schools, are also being implemented. Many EIP companies have a corporate social responsibility budget, which they are encouraged to spend on educational and community projects that develop and support the local community in terms of education, training and development, while also targeting future employment needs within the park.
“All the work we do at the NCPC-SA helps to transition industry to becoming sustainable. The core programme, which is funded by the Swiss government through UNIDO’s Global Eco Industrial Park programme, is a global initiative that is being trialled in just seven countries in the world, with South Africa being one of them. And at local policy level, the dtic and the National Treasury have adopted the EIP approach as being central to South Africa’s interventions for industrial parks across the country,” notes Oellermann.
From an individual company perspective, he says that adopting an NCPC-SA programme is commitment-free and need not require expensive investments in green technologies. An initial free assessment simply strives to put industrial manufacturers on a long-term sustainable path.
“We look at industry’s production processes at factory level, assess their energy, water and resource use, and then seek opportunities for improving that usage. This saves on the real costs of production for each company, while simultaneously guiding us all down the path towards cleaner and more sustainable production processes,” he says.
“Ultimately, we exist to help industries to successfully negotiate every aspect of the sustainability transition and to ensure that they avoid the pitfalls associated with continuing on the increasingly dangerous path we are currently on,” concludes Bernd Oellermann.
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