About Kalunborg Symbiosis

Kalundborg is a city in Denmark where big industrial companies work together across sectors to share excess energy, water, and materials, so less goes to waste. As public and private companies are physically connected, one

company’s surplus of resources adds value to another. Today, more than 30 different streams of excess resources flow between the companies, creating a symbiosis of resource exchange, adding more resilience and profit to the partners.

The Challenge

The world population is growing, and urbanisation is spreading, hence industry is expanding. Every year, 100 billion tonnes of raw material are extracted from the earth, which

is comparable to demolishing two-thirds of Mount Everest every year (Miller, 2021). However, increased industrialisation is driving increased waste generation. The World Bank estimates that the world generates 2.01 billion tonnes of waste each

year, with that figure anticipated to rise to 3.4 billion tonnes by 2050 (Kaza et al., 2021). But, amongst the discarded waste are treasures for certain industries and Kalundborg Symbiosis is an example of an initiative capitalising on that potential.

The Circular Solution in Practice

Kalundborg Symbiosis is the world’s first industrial symbiosis (IS) initiative that has evolved over the past 50 years, with a partnership of 17 public and private companies. IS is a form of circular economy that connects businesses from various industries to increase waste valorisation, improve resource efficiency, and reduce environmental impact (Trokanas et al., 2014).

The Kalundborg network began in 1961 with a project to use surface water from Lake Tissø for a new oil refinery (UNEP). To preserve the limited ground water supply, the city of Kalundborg built the pipeline using funding from the refinery (UNEP). Following that, many other collaborative initiatives were established, with the number of partners gradually increasing (UNEP). By the end of the 1980’s, the partners realised that they had developed an IS (UNEP). IS provides mutual economic and environmental benefits for the partners.

Some valuable initiatives include the elimination of 3500 oil-fired domestic furnaces since 1981 and distribution of heat from the Asnaes Power Station, Denmark’s largest power plant, via an underground pipe network (Doty, 2023). Homeowners pay for the piping but receive affordable, dependable heat in exchange (Doty, 2023). The power plant supplies cooling water to an on-site fish farm that produces roughly 200 tonnes of trout per year (Doty, 2023). Asnaes also provides process steam to neighbouring companies, Novo Nordisk and Statoil (Doty, 2023).

Climate Impact

Currently, every year, the symbiosis saves the partners and environment:

• 4 billion litres of groundwater by using surface water instead

• 586.000 tonnes of CO2

• 62.000 tonnes of residual materials recycled including waste, gypsum, fly ash, sulphur, bioethanol, sand, sludge, C5/C6 sugars, lignin, NovoGro 30, ethanol waste and biomass.

In addition, 80% of the emissions in the Symbiosis has been reduced since

2015, and the local energy supply is now carbon neutral.

While the fossil fuel industry is at the heart of the Kalunborg network, and that industry is by far the largest contributor to global climate change (UN, 2023), there is still a lot to be learned from Kalundborg’s decades of experience in industrial symbiosis.

Replicability

The European Union has 6656 industrial facilities, with approximately 43 million alternatives for collaboration (Quintana, Chamkhi, and Bredimas, 2020). As a result, there are numerous opportunities for IS, however; there are a few factors

to consider for a successful project. The SCALER (SCALing European Resources with industrial symbiosis) Project 2018 report on lessons learnt and best practices for enhancing industrial symbiosis in

the process industry makes three main recommendations to the business community involved in or considering IS:

1. Leadership: There must be strong leadership and commitment from top management to shift the organisational mindset away from linear processes and towards IS.

   
   

2. Long-term commitment is vital to under-pin IS for economic, social, and environmental benefits to be realised. Initially, synergistic initiatives need to be small scale to build capability, capacity and most importantly confidence before attempting bolder steps.

   
   

3. Internal organisational IS structure: A dedicated organisational structure to explore and drive synergistic opportunities is required because it will deliver more rapid progress than project-based assignments.

A noteworthy example of IS in Ireland is Well Spent Grain, a CIRCULEIRE New

Venture, they collect brewer’s spent grain from brewers like Rascals Brewing Company and transform it into Born- Again Bites, a healthy and delicious snack.