The Industrial Symbiosis at Kalundborg, Denmark

Kalundborg's Industrial Symbiosis is the world's most well known example of industrial ecology in practice. The Symbiosis is a collaboration between five primary independent industrial enterprises for mutual economic and environmental benefit. It is based on a series of bilateral commercial agreements on three different kinds of projects: recycling water, exchanging energy at different levels, and recycling waste products. The Aeneas Power Plant, for example, produces a waste stream of steam and heated water. This water warms the tanks of a fish farm, while the steam is used by the municipality for heating and by Novo Nordisk, a pharmaceutical company. Novo Nordisk, in turn, pipes organic sludge waste to farms to use as fertilizer.

Cooperation between businesses was voluntary, but conducted in close collaboration with regulatory authorities (Christensen 1994). The Symbiosis partnerships have developed over nearly thirty years. By 1998, the Symbiosis agreements have amounted to some $160 million in savings. This level of cost savings and improved environmental performance becomes a competitive advantage for participating companies.

For more information, please contact:

Noel Brings Jacobsen
The Symbiosis Institute
c/o Industrial Development Council, Kalundborg Region
P.O.BOX 25, Casa Danica Center
Hareskovvej 19
4400 Kalundborg
Denmark
Phone: +45 5955 0055
Fax: +45 5951 2255
E-mail: kalundborg@symbiosis.dk
Web: www.symbiosis.dk