The Evolution of Industrial Ecology in Australia

Industrial ecology (IE) has a firm foothold in Australia with practitioners, industry and government working to develop ongoing meaningful change in the way we do business and manage our resources. Over the last decade, Edge... [ view full abstract ]

Industrial ecology (IE) has a firm foothold in Australia with practitioners, industry and government working to develop ongoing meaningful change in the way we do business and manage our resources. Over the last decade, Edge Environment, a sustainability consultancy in Sydney Australia, has witnessed the transition of IE as a technical and specialized area of knowledge for a relatively small sector of industry, through to a more mainstream concept encompassing all industry from supermarkets with excess bakery production to building product manufacturers with excess timber offcuts

We are currently working with the New South Wales Environment Protection Agency (EPA), implementing parts of the Waste Less Recycle More initiative. Within this initiative, the Circulate Program is a $5M part of the $465M program and represents an innovation in typical EPA policy to test whether IE can become part of a regulatory solution to diverting commercial and industrial waste from landfill. Circulate is designed to facilitate IE relationships, to ultimately create new markets, jobs and divert waste from landfill. With ambitious targets to close landfills in NSW, the EPA is targeting resource recovery in a big way. The implementation of Circulate has been a step change in the evolution of IE.

Edge Environment also supported the establishment of the Australian Industrial Ecology Network (AIEN), a vibrant network of like-minded individuals and companies with a common interest in sustainable development through the study and practice of IE. Established in 2014, the AIEN is a fundamental partner in the evolution of IE in Australia by hosting events, providing advice and policy advocacy.  

Integrating IE as Business as Usual

The NSW EPA Circulate Program has been playing a role creating systemic change across industry. It is disrupting the take, make, use, dispose linear model of consumption and is pulling policy, self-regulatory and business levers to extract materials from the waste stream and create new business reprocessing and recycling materials into new markets.

The role is more sophisticated than originally conceived as it is not solely a matter of identifying waste and matching it with a receiver who can use it as a resource; there are many impediments that need addressing before a circular model can gain momentum and become business as usual. These include:

• Entrenched behaviors of industry including the producers of waste and the transporters/end of life stakeholders.
• Vested interests of end of life/disposal stakeholders  waste industry).
• Economy of scale – materials are often spread across many sites in small amounts and need aggregating before an economically viable solution can be applied.
•  An immature/fledgling market/industry for reprocessing/dealing with materials extracted from the waste stream.

Through the evolution of IE in Australia, with the Circulate program and AIEN as a basis, we see opportunities for greater partnerships between industry and government; and linkages with other government policies such as energy efficiency, carbon mitigation and cleaner production as some examples.

Integration of IE across government policy and along supply chains will see long term positive change for business productivity, resource management and environmental outcomes in Australia.