Search

With an extensive presence in the world of Industrial Symbiosis literature, the Kwinana industrial area in Perth, Western Australia is a powerhouse of integrated heavy industrial activity. From when its first entrant arrived in 1955, development has been strong, and now it presents a complex industrial cluster with a wide range of industrial enterprises present, ranging from several major industrial multi-product manufacturers to those filling niche markets. Formal reporting of its economic contribution has occurred periodically over 40 yr, with one of the features of this being a series of four earlier iterations, and in this paper, the fifth, of a schematic diagram that identifies the enterprises engaged in symbiotic relationships and the nature of the associated materials exchanged. While the earlier reports concentrated solely on the traditional materials exchanges, the present study (data collected in 2021) went beyond these to gather additional data on what the authors are proposing as additional dimensions of the traditional Industrial Symbiosis framework. Aspects of Kwinana's skilled workforce, its support industry base, and its overlying governance framework were studied to provide insights into what role they play in explaining why some industrial clusters appear to provide a supportive business environment, and why other clusters struggle to gain momentum. The new study identified that the novel posited dimensions of Industrial Symbiosis are interlinked at the precinct level, and that at the macro (societal) level, they combine to contribute to the effectiveness of the Circular Economy.

Industrial enterprises around the world are grappling with greenhouse gas emission reduction expectations, whether being driven by respective government policy for climate change or by shareholders to drive corporate sustainability through maintaining access to their ‘net zero’-demanding markets. In some instances, the enterprises co-located within complex industrial areas are coming together to face the common carbon reduction challenge as a collective. The Kwinana Industrial Area in Perth, Western Australia is well regarded on the world's stage as a successful integrated heavy industrial precinct, presenting as an extensive, complex, and broad-based example of Industrial Symbiosis. In earlier papers, the authors have posited a novel four-dimensional framework to expand the definition of Industrial Symbiosis to be used to understand why one industrial precinct may be more successful for its resident industries to operate within than another, and for application in the design of new industrial areas. The four dimensions are described as Materials Exchange, Skilled Workforce, Support Industry, and Governance. Through the lens of climate change literature and policy frameworks, we investigate the governance dimension and industry's response to the contemporary climate challenge. The outputs of the paper include a literature review of the governance dimension, and a description of the cascading nature of climate change policy from global through to the enterprise level. We illustrate how climate change governance is enhanced in practice by detailing how the enterprises in Kwinana collectively responded to the global requirement for carbon reduction, achieved through the facilitative governance-based intervention of their industry association, the Kwinana Industries Council. Exploring this in-practice example helped to consolidate the hypothesis that successful industrial symbiosis is about positive relationships across several dimensions building towards improved Circular Economy outcomes.

In Australia, exploitation of shale gas is at an early stage. Western Australia has estimated its technically recoverable gas resources at 235 trillion cubic feet (tcf). It is viewed as an exciting economic prospect and decarbonising option for transition to climate change mitigation. The central focus of this paper is to estimate the climate impacts of Australian shale gas fracking and compare with other energy sources. Electricity generation has been considered as end use of gas in export scenarios to Japan and China. Analysis has been done for resource development periods of 20 and 40 years. Carbon footprints of shale gas range from 604MtCO2e to 543 MtCO2e per annum for China and Japan export cases, respectively, for 20 years field lifetime, if 66 tcf of shale gas is exploited and used. This result is roughly equivalent to 115% of Australia's total national emissions for the year 2014. If all technically recoverable shale gas (235tcf) from the Canning Basin in the Kimberley is exploited and exported to China and Japan over 40 years, the annual emissions are double the total Australian national emissions. The result suggests that shale gas has low carbon intensity compared to coal and oil but solar PV and wind are much cleaner energy options for GHG mitigation. The solar PV and wind electricity would produce 8% and 5% of the shale gas electricity emissions, respectively. Unless accompanied by stringent regulation and compliance on the upstream resource development, stage shale gas cannot be an appropriate energy source for sustainable development as opposed to renewable energy sources.

Water heating accounts for 23% of residential energy consumption in Australia, and, as over half is provided by electric water heaters, is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Due to inclusion in rebate schemes heat pump water heating systems are becoming increasingly popular, but do they result in lower greenhouse gas emissions? This study follows on from a previous life cycle assessment study of domestic hot water systems to include heat pump systems. The streamlined life cycle assessment approach used focused on the use phase of the life cycle, which was found in the previous study to be where the majority of global warming potential (GWP) impacts occurred. Data was collected from an Australian heat pump manufacturer and was modelled assuming installation within Australian climate zone 3 (AS/NZS 4234:2011). Several scenarios were investigated for the heat pumps including different sources of electricity (grid, photovoltaic solar modules, and batteries) and the use of solar thermal panels. It was found that due to their higher efficiency heat pump hot water systems can result in significantly lower GWP than electric storage hot water systems. Further, solar thermal heat pump systems can have lower GWP than solar electric hot water systems that use conventional electric boosting. Additionally, the contributions of HFC refrigerants to GWP can be significant so the use of alternative refrigerants is recommended. Heat pumps combined with PV and battery technology can achieve the lowest GWP of all domestic hot water systems.

Green Growth (GG) is about decoupling emission intensity from economic growth, which can be achieved by fostering positive economic growth through resource-efficiency, cleaner environment and increased resilience to climate change. Cities play an important role in economic development, as they are inhabited by a large proportion of the global population in a relatively small land area and cities are the wheel of the economy of a country. Implementation and measurement of GG in cities is challenging as the regulatory framework, roles and responsibilities to the citizen and the encompassing environment of cities differ significantly. This can be addressed by identifying a set of GG indicators that are relevant to target cities, which would be used by the cities to implement programs and policies, and to measure progress and performance. Australia is situated in an environment somewhat disconnected from the rest of the world, which is home to unique biodiversity and vulnerable ecosystems. The regulatory and institutional framework of Australian cities is different to many other cities in the world in terms of their obligations to the community and the environment, and the level of law enforcement, particularly in areas that are relevant for GG. This paper reviews the available GG indicators in cities and assesses the applicability of those indicators against the regulatory and institutional framework of Australian cities. The application of the proposed set of indicators to the City of Melbourne and the City of Perth helped to validate the appropriateness of those indicators and to assess the performance of the cities in relation to GG. It appears that the cities are performing well in some areas and need improvement in others. The cities also need to mainstream the GG indicators and to align their data measurement and recording systems in line with the proposed GG indicators.

Recent research has demonstrated that low-emission houses often underperform, consuming more energy than predicted by their designs. Life cycle assessments (LCA) have been employed to complement mandatory energy assessments, as they offer a more comprehensive evaluation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the building lifespan. This research monitored ten energy efficient Australian houses and recorded data about energy use and photovoltaic generation over 1 year. The houses were assessed with a relatively new LCA tool in addition to the Australian mandatory house energy assessment Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS). The objective of this study was twofold: first, to evaluate the results of the assessment tools compared to actual house energy requirements and second, to understand how design, renewable energy, and occupancy can impact the overall GHG emissions of the houses. The results show that energy use is positively related to NatHERS ratings, but some of the high performance houses perform poorly and there was significant variation in energy use between houses with the same ratings. The LCA revealed that modern houses have higher embodied energy than older houses, while solar panels are not always used to their full potential. This paper attributes some of the variations between theoretical and actual energy use to construction issues and occupant practices.

Western Australia has globally significant onshore gas resources, with over 280 trillion cubic feet of economically recoverable gas located in five shale basins. The Western Australian Government and gas industry have promoted the development of these resources as a “clean energy source” that would “help to reduce global carbon emissions” and provide a “transition fuel” to a low carbon economy. This research examines those claims by reviewing existing literature and published data to estimate the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution that would result from the development of Western Australia’s onshore gas basins using hydraulic fracking. Estimates of carbon pollution from each stage in gas development, processing, transport and end-use are considered in order to establish total life-cycle emissions in tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent (CO2e). The emissions estimates draw from published research on emissions from shale gas development in other jurisdictions as well as industry or government reported emissions from current technology for gas processing and end-use as applicable. The current policy and regulatory environment for carbon pollution and likely resulting GHG mitigation measures has also been considered, as well as the potential for the gas to displace or substitute for other energy sources. In areas where there is uncertainty, conservative emissions estimates have been used. Modelling of GHG emissions has been undertaken for two comparison resource development and utilisation scenarios; Australian domestic and 100% export i.e. no domestic use. Each scenario corresponds to a different proportionate allocation of emissions accounted for domestic emissions in Australia and emissions accounted for in other jurisdictions. Emissions estimates for the two scenarios are 245–502 MTCO2e/year respectively over a resource development timeframe of 20 years. This is roughly the same as Australia’s total GHG emissions in 2014 which were 525 MTCO2e/year. This research concludes that GHG emissions resulting from the development of Western Australia’s five onshore gas basins would be equivalent to all other Australian emissions sources combined at 2014 levels each year for 20 years which is the general lifetime of a well.

Waste generation is an inevitable by-product of human activity, and it is on the rise due to rapid urbanisation, industrialisation, increased wealth and population. The composition of municipal solid waste (MSW) in developed and developing economies differ, especially with the organic fraction. Research shows that the food waste stream of MSW in developing countries is over 50%. The case study for this investigation, Nigeria, has minimal formal recycling or resource recovery programs. The average composition of waste from previous research in the country is between 50–70% putrescible and 30–50% non-putrescible, presenting significant resource recovery potential in composting and biogas production. Waste-to-energy (WtE) is an important waste management solution that has been successfully implemented and operated in most developed economies. This contribution reports the conditions that would be of interest before WtE potentials of MSW is harnessed, in an efficient waste management process in a developing economy like Nigeria. The investigation presents a set of socio-technical parameters and transition strategy model that would inform a productive MSW management and resource recovery, in which WtE can be part of the solution. This model will find application in the understanding of the interactions between the socio-economic, technical and environmental system, to promote sustainable resource recovery programs in developing economies, among which is WtE.