PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The European Union Strategy for Sustainable Development focuses on the need for integrating ecological and economic considerations into the decision making process. In the last few years, the aim of European environmental policy has shifted from the improvement of standards and management criteria in the fields of waste, waters, soil and air emissions to the definition of methods for the overall assessment of future scenarios and for the integration of environmental policies in different sectors. The reasoning behind this is very simple: the earlier the relevant environmental issues are taken into consideration in the decision-making process, the more effective and economically efficient the actions aimed at protecting the environment will be. The same recommendation applies to European enterprise policy: the environmental variable should be integrated with the other variables that affect the business decision-making process. Within this framework, theories and applications in the field of “Industrial Ecology” represent the conceptual background for the project. The scope of Industrial Ecology is to contribute to the construction of closed loop economies by defining, for example, networks of enterprises that exchange waste so that materials discharged by one firm can be used as raw material by another. As a result, the overall quantity of waste produced is minimised. In such systems, material and energy flows are considered over the whole life cycle of a product/process, with the inclusion of the initial phase of raw material extraction, their consumption over the production process and their transformation in waste. Prato, Lucca, and Pistoia belong to a group of industrial zones referred to in Italian law as “industrial districts”. This is a local industrial system, consisting of SMEs, which are closely linked to the local community. Most of them specialise in traditional sectors such as fashion, furniture and food, and are located in the central and northern parts of Italy. Since 1991 these business clusters have been distinguished from other industrial zones under special legislation (IT. L. n°317/91) that sets a statistics-based standard for classifying industrial districts, for example according to product concentration, number of companies of the same sector and level of turnover. Among the different types of industrial zones existing in Italy, the ”industrial district” would be the most ideal for the application of Industrial Ecology principles, not least because of the fact that a network of businesses can better meet the costs of the EMS than a single industrial estate.
OBJECTIVES
- To outline a system of relationships among district businesses for the realization of "closed-cycle economies" by the establishment of an Eco-Industrial District (EID): a regional system of relationships by which businesses, institutions and local communities collaborate in order to reach economic and environmental performance goals through the management of natural resources. - To redesign relationships among SMEs in the district and minimize polluting emissions (waste, drainage water, atmospheric emissions), consumption of natural resources (primary materials, water) and wastes from production processes. To create new production activities and job opportunities. - To reduce environmental management costs by application of scale economies for environmental management in the SMEs; to reduce environmental impact factors in an area subject to undue pressure from industrial impacts; to introduce environmental variables to drive technological innovation.
RESULTS
Expected results: the CLOSED method intended to use analytical tools in order to draw a map of the relationships among the various sectors in the productive districts, in order to create an integrated system balancing available wastes and demand for materials. In order to improve the eco-efficiency of the district, the CLOSED method aimed at re-design of products and their management through application of the following methods: a. Reducing input of raw materials (material flow) by using wastes (output) from other productive cycles. b. Replacing inputted materials with materials with a lower ecological impact. c. Reducing wastes and controlling their ecological impact. Achieved results: the CLOSED project was carried out with reference to enterprises located in the industrial districts of Lucca, Prato, and Pistoia. Because of their territorial and technological proximity, these districts are suitable for the application of a new model of management that will improve the performance of the systems for paper, textile and plant-flower growing activities. A combined analytical methodology (including tools such as Local Environmental Analysis (LEA); Life Cycle Assessment (LCA); Material Flow Accounting (MFA); and Environmental Cost Accounting (ECA)) was systematically applied to a sample of 62 firms enabling the reconstruction of the standard productive network for each district. This was done by identifying the different phases of the transformation process of material and energy flows, both inward and outward from the production cycle and the relative economic-environmental data. This analysis allowed a model to be drawn up for a possible eco-industrial district, calculating the use of exploitable wastes as secondary materials, the distance between the producers and the potential users of the secondary materials and the potential market for the second materials themselves. On the basis of the results of the analysis, “Project files” (project hypotheses) have been created for testing the symbiotic relationships at the study level. The “project files” have been assessed as regards their innovative value, technical feasibility, economic and environmental benefits. Moreover, the project hypotheses have been tested with the DPSIR model (Driving forces-Pressure-State-Impact-Response). The model, used to describe the state of the environment via a series of indicators selected by Eurostat, allowed a detailed description of the activities with the greatest impact on the environment in the three districts to be obtained, in order to find out the causes of the greatest pressure and propose corrective actions. The “Project files” are as follows: Lucca district 1. Thermo-upgrading of wastes (pulp and mud) with consequent energy recycling. 2. Recycling of papermill mud and it’s use as material in the building industry. Pistoia district 3. Recycling and upgrading of the ligneous-cellulose wastes derived from the plant flower growing industry and use of them for the production of soil amendment material through the bio-stabilisation process. 4. Recycling of re-flue waters from agriculture: the pilot system in Pistoia for the irrigation of decorative plant species. 5. Saving, recycling and reuse of the waters used for irrigation, in order to optimise the management of water resources. Prato district 6. Recycling the re-flue waters: refining through natural techniques. Reconstruction of humid areas for multiple purposes. 7. Thermo-upgrading of textile manufacturing processes and of depuration mud. 8. Recycling of depuration mud as inert material for the building industry. . A follow-up ex-post evaluation was carried out by the LIFE external monitoring team in May 2005. It confirmed the following: - The DPSIR (Driving forces-Pressure-State-Impact-Response) manual was published and distributed in 2004, to a wide number of stakeholders, local administrators, policy- and decision-makers. The project hypotheses were tested using the DPSIR model and used to describe the state of the environment via a series of indicators selected by Eurostat. The model allowed a detailed description of the activities with the greatest impact on the environment to be obtained in the three districts (Lucca, Pistoia and Prato). - The beneficiary – the regional agency for the environmental monitoring and protection – has also continued developing and the promoting the project environmental initiatives within the frame-work of its institutional tasks.