International Industrial Ecology Day 2021

Kwinana Industrial Area (KIA) is the state’s premier industrial area located in Perth metropolitan area, in Western Australia within a substantial buffer zone for risk management for noise, odours, emissions. The KIA is dominated by heavy process industries for the last 50 years. It is where one of the world’s best practice industrial symbiosis (IS) implemented as documented in the scholarly publications for the last two decades. The Kwinana Industries Council (KIC) is an Industry association Incorporated in 1991 that is geographically focused on the Western Trade Coast (WTC), and KIA as the key industrial area among the other three industrial estates in WTC. Around 30,000 workers (direct and indirect) attribute their employment to the WTC, and it makes an economic contribution to the State of WA of around $16Bn pa. KIC advocates for the members’ collegiate interests being fully funded by members and is acknowledged as a respected voice of industry. In KIA, there are several exchanges occurring continuously among the Industries commercially in the form of product, by-product, and utility. The recent study conducted by KIC through the collection of data from 34 industries using a questionnaire provided insight into the increase of traditional product, by-product, and utility synergies. It also showed key insights into the existence of additional dimensions of industrial symbiosis. Apart from the traditional product and by-product dimension of IS, three additional dimensions seem to be playing a crucial role in the KIA, these being the skilled workforce; support industry; and governance dimensions. The analysis of data provided insight into the importance of these dimensions and key factors on the success of synergies between industries. The results from this study will be presented during this presentation.