Quantifying Economic and Environmental Benefits of Co-Located Firms
April 28, 2008 by NICOLAS HERNANDEZ and amathew | Filed under: Collaboratory,In the host community [1, 4],RESEARCH CATEGORY: THE ROLE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGER
Quantifying Economic and Environmental Benefits of Co-Located Firms
This paper is really about industrial symbiosis. A win-win strategy that engages separate industries to work together and engage in physical exchanges of material, water, energy and by products. I see this approach as an opportunity for the environmental manager in the host community to minimize or eliminate the negative impact in the local environment.
This article focuses in the industrial symbiosis network in Guayama, Puerto Rico.
The companies are benefiting by recycling resources at a much lower cost and at the same time make their byproduct available to other companies and eliminating or minimizing their disposal cost.
The community benefit because they do not have to give up their valuable resources and get their energy and other products at lower cost because of the resource sharing by these company in their community. The also benefit from lower pollution levels. It is reported that because of this arrangement there was a 99.5% reduction in SO2 emissions in Guayama, Puerto Rico.