Environmental And Economic Benefit Evaluation Of Industrial Symbiosis In Eco-Industrial Parks

Faced with the negative environmental impact of the rapid industrialization,industrial parks as carriers of industrial development should make a positive response.With the successful operation of Kalundborg Eco-Industrial Park,many national and regional governments have begun to promote the construction of eco-industrial parks(EIPs)to coordinate economic and environmental development.However,industrial symbiosis,an important component,still lacks the initiative to practice,and it is difficult to measure and approve statistics in the park,which hinders construction of EIPs.In addition,the current benefits analysis of industrial symbiosis is one-sided,with limitations in the breadth and depth.Therefore,a comprehensive quantitative assessment of the environmental and economic benefits of industrial symbiosis in EIPs is helpful to intuitively express the advantages of symbiosis,break the bottleneck of symbiosis practice,and provide guidance for the planning and the construction of symbiosis networks in industrial parks.This paper takes Yanggu Xiangguang National Eco-Industrial Park(YXNEIP)as an example to summary and improve the patterns of industrial symbiosis,highlight the correlation between symbiosis elements and effects.Combining emergy analysis and life cycle assessment,not only expands the system boundary from the technical field of life cycle assessment to include natural systems,but also makes up for the deficiency of emergy analysis in quantifying environmental impact.By comparing the contribution of different symbiosis patterns in terms of emergy saving and environmental pollution reduction,the benefit characteristics of different symbiosis patterns are explored.At the same time,the perspective of benefit analysis is broadened,and a comprehensive evaluation index system for environmental and economic benefits of industrial symbiosis in EIPs is established,which comprehensively considers the park environment in full life cycle and socioeconomic aspects,so as to provide an effective analysis tool for the evaluation of the symbiosis construction level and performance and the construction of symbiosis networks.The research results found that:(1)According to the categories of exchanged resources,industrial symbiosis was divided into material symbiosis,water symbiosis,energy symbiosis,and synergistic symbiosis.(2)The industrial symbiosis patterns established in YXNEIP saved 1.00E+22 sej of emergy input.Among them,material symbiosis played a leading role,providing 80.39%of the total emergy saving;synergistic symbiosis brought 93.58%direct emission reduction benefits.(3)Industrial symbiosis mitigated 19.00%of the total environmental impact.Among them,material symbiosis was the most important symbiosis way,accounting for 61.58 of the total environmental benefits;synergistic symbiosis contributed 52.18%and 62.29%of environmental benefits in alleviating global warming and terrestrial acidification respectively.(4)The comprehensive evaluation results showed that,from the environmental perspective of the park in the whole life cycle,emergy input was saved by 33.68%,the impact of pollution emissions was reduced by 86.46%,and the direct material,water and energy consumption per unit of GDP were reduced;for every 10,000 yuan of GDP produced,a certain amount of environmental load was reduced in terms of fossil depletion,water depletion,metal depletion,global warming,particulate matter formation,photochemical ozone formation,and terrestrial acidification,especially the effect of water depletion(54.39%)was the most obvious.At the socioeconomic level,industrial symbiosis avoided economic investment of 1.29E+10 yuan(equivalent to 50.79%of the park’s GDP),eased 33.78%of the environmental load,thereby increasing the level of sustainable development by 51.23%.Based on the benefit characteristics of industrial symbiosis,this paper put forward the following five countermeasures and suggestions for the construction of symbiosis network:improve the industrial layout and enrich material symbiosis;strengthen water resource management and build a water symbiosis network;optimize the energy structure and promote energy symbiosis;efficiently utilize resources and explore collaborative symbiosis;build an information platform and strengthen scientific and technological support.In this way,the construction of EIPs will be promoted,and the sustainable development of the industry will be realized.