31 – The iron/steel production centred urban and industrial district of Liuzhou, China: improving Industrial Symbiosis to balance environment protection and economic development

Liuzhou is an industrial city in southern China, in Guangxi province, home to a large industrial district, mainly composed by heavy industries such as iron and steel, automotive, cement, chemical and energy production. Some symbiotic exchanges have traditionally always been spontaneously implemented in the district, especially those involving iron and steel and cement companies, forming the Liuzhou circular economy industrial park. Over the last years, the national and local government have been involving companies and researchers in the identification of new potential exchanges to be implemented in the district.

The main challenge that led to such effort to identify new exchanges is the need of Liuzhou municipality to find a way to respond to environmental issues without exposing its economy to high risks, finding a new balance between industrial development and environment protection.

The main barrier in the Industrial Symbiosis implementation process was related to energy exchanges. In fact, compared to bulk materials, energy is more difficult to transport for long distances and transportation facilities are usually more expensive. In addition, the lack of standard recycling technologies and of waste management systems contributed to increase difficulties encountered to start new exchanges. Finally, environmental awareness is generally very low in China, considerably slowing down the implementation process.

The approach proposed to overcome such barriers is to create efficient energy facilities channelling funds and savings towards transportation facilities construction and new technologies development. In addition, awareness-raising activities, such as periodical newsletters and workshops, are suggested.

The discovery process has been conducted by researchers as main facilitators of the symbiotic network expansion activities. First, data have been gathered using already existing reports and surveys, conducted during previous projects. These data have been integrated with first-hand surveys and interviews, as well as other published literature; they were also verified by the means of surveys. Material flow analysis has been used in order to identify new potential exchanges and their profitability has been evaluated considering the improved carbon footprint. Finally, new scenarios are described basing on new potential symbiotic exchanges and their feasibility and profitability is evaluated.

The main preconditions that allowed the identification of new symbiotic exchanges in Liuzhou area are the previous experience of facilitators in implementing Industrial Symbiosis in other similar industrial provinces (e.g. Jinan), and the fact that some of the companies in the district were already involved in spontaneous exchanges. In addition, the fact that the Chinese government had launched several initiatives to incentive circular economy implementation activities in resource dependent cities since 2001 contributed to the start of this new project.