5 research outputs found
Industrial ecology: a new planning platform for developing countries
Ramesh Ramaswamy and Suren Erkman WHY DEVELOPING COUNTRIES? A great
deal of manufacturing for the global market is increasingly moving
to developing countries, and many countries such as China and India
are experiencing rapid growth. Therefore, it is now a crucial time
to in?uence their choice of an industrial development path. While
it is an enormous opportunity to improve the living standards in
these countries through increased employment and business opportunities,
it is a serious load on the local resources (such as water, energy,
land, and so on), whose availability to the populations of these
countries is very poor. A development path that is based on resource
availability could create industrial growth that uses the resources
more e?ciently and judiciously, with minimal local and global impacts.
A less careful industrial development plan that uses up scarce resources
could spell danger to the very survival of over 80 per cent of the
planet's population that lives in the developing world. GROUND REALITIES
OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES It is important to understand some aspects
of life in the poor countries that are very much at variance to what
is seen in the developed world. Among the many speci?c aspects that
have to be borne in mind, is the fact that the pattern of resource
?ows in developing countries and hence the resultant environmental
threat could be very di?erent from what we see in the industrialized
West. Typically, the ?ows of materials through large, organized manufacturing
facilities in developing countries..
Applied industrial ecology : a new platform for planning sustainable societies : focus on developing countries with case studies from India
Industrial Ecological Solutions
This chapter discusses how the industrial ecological systems can help
in dealing with environmental issues in developing countries, and
it presents three case studies from India that highlight some of
the unique environmental issues of developing world. Industrial ecology
explores the assumption that the industrial system can be seen as
a certain kind of ecosystem. The scope of industrial ecology goes
well beyond waste exchange to the optimization of resources flowing
through the economic system. Among the various specific aspects of
developing countries, which have to be born in mind, is the fact
that the pattern of resource flows in developing countries, and hence,
the resultant environmental threat could be very different than what
it is in the industrialized west. Typically, the flow of materials
through the large, organized manufacturing facilities in the developing
countries could be very small in relation to the overall material
flow as the small, informal ?industry? plays a key role and forms
a very significant portion of the economic activity. The case studies
of the Tirupur textile industries, and the leather industry in India,
illustrate how redefining the problem from a perspective of resource
conservation, and on the basis of resource flow data could point
to totally new directions for strategy planning. The case study of
the Damodar Valley region amplifies the importance of looking beyond
formal industry to solve an environmental problem. It shows that
even for globally critical programs, such as climate change program
in developing countries, it is just not enough to estimate the emissions
from the formal industrial sectors
A spatially explicit life cycle inventory of the global textile chain
Life cycle analyses (LCA) approaches require adaptation to reflect
the increasing delocalization of production to emerging countries.
This work addresses this challenge by establishing a country-level,
spatially explicit life cycle inventory (LCI). This study comprises
three separate dimensions. The first dimension is spatial: processes
and emissions are allocated to the country in which they take place
and modeled to take into account local factors. Emerging economies
China and India are the location of production, the consumption occurs
in Germany, an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
country. The second dimension is the product level: we consider two
distinct textile garments, a cotton T-shirt and a polyester jacket,
in order to highlight potential differences in the production and
use phases. The third dimension is the inventory composition: we
track CO2, SO2, NO (x), and particulates, four major atmospheric
pollutants, as well as energy use. This third dimension enriches
the analysis of the spatial differentiation (first dimension) and
distinct products (second dimension).
We describe the textile production and use processes and define a
functional unit for a garment. We then model important processes
using a hierarchy of preferential data sources. We place special
emphasis on the modeling of the principal local energy processes:
electricity and transport in emerging countries.
The spatially explicit inventory is disaggregated by country of location
of the emissions and analyzed according to the dimensions of the
study: location, product, and pollutant. The inventory shows striking
differences between the two products considered as well as between
the different pollutants considered. For the T-shirt, over 70% of
the energy use and CO2 emissions occur in the consuming country,
whereas for the jacket, more than 70% occur in the producing country.
This reversal of proportions is due to differences in the use phase
of the garments. For SO2, in contrast, over two thirds of the emissions
occur in the country of production for both T-shirt and jacket. The
difference in emission patterns between CO2 and SO2 is due to local
electricity processes, justifying our emphasis on local energy infrastructure.
The complexity of considering differences in location, product, and
pollutant is rewarded by a much richer understanding of a global
production-consumption chain. The inclusion of two different products
in the LCI highlights the importance of the definition of a product's
functional unit in the analysis and implications of results. Several
use-phase scenarios demonstrate the importance of consumer behavior
over equipment efficiency. The spatial emission patterns of the different
pollutants allow us to understand the role of various energy infrastructure
elements. The emission patterns furthermore inform the debate on
the Environmental Kuznets Curve, which applies only to pollutants
which can be easily filtered and does not take into account the effects
of production displacement. We also discuss the appropriateness and
limitations of applying the LCA methodology in a global context,
especially in developing countries.
Our spatial LCI method yields important insights in the quantity and
pattern of emissions due to different product life cycle stages,
dependent on the local technology, emphasizing the importance of
consumer behavior. From a life cycle perspective, consumer education
promoting air-drying and cool washing is more important than efficient
appliances.
Spatial LCI with country-specific data is a promising method, necessary
for the challenges of globalized production-consumption chains. We
recommend inventory reporting of final energy forms, such as electricity,
and modular LCA databases, which would allow the easy modification
of underlying energy infrastructure