Industrial symbiosis: where we are today
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Why Yokogawa can lead
Distance 7650 Miles
Distance 7050 Miles
Distance 6900 Miles
Distance 6845 Miles
From linear to inter-linked circles:
Yokogawa’s symbiotic economy
Let's make our planet smarter.
What's next for
our planet?
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Clarifying Purpose
What’s Next for
Our Planet?
Even with an end in sight for the Covid-19 pandemic, global boardrooms must not forgo a rare opportunity to “build back better.” One way to rebuild more sustainably is to graduate from a linear take-make-waste model to a circular economy model where waste is reused over and over. To achieve such a circular world, industries must achieve higher levels of automation and collaboration, while adopting new clean technologies. Yokogawa, the Japanese leader of automation technologies, is committed to these three goals and hopes to guide industry towards a higher stage of automation, or what it envisions as a symbiotic economy. This article explores why such symbiotic economy is necessary and how Yokogawa can lead us there.
What's next for our planet?
Let's make it smarter.
Industrial Automation to Industrial Autonomy
Building back better, from linear to circular
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Such a transition would bring vast benefits. According to the World Economic Forum, over 92 billion tonnes of materials were extracted and processed last year, contributing to about half of global CO2 emissions. The resulting waste – including plastics, textiles, food, electronics and more – are damaging the environment and human health. By switching to a circular economy model of reducing and reusing this waste, the WEF estimates some $4.5 trillion in economic benefits to 2030. But as only some 8.6% of our global economy is circular, making this shift will require unprecedented levels of collaboration.
– from deforestation to severe reduction in biodiversity – is driving an increasing number of new diseases such as Covid-19 to leap from wildlife to humans.
One way to rebuild more sustainably – and a solution increasingly backed by business leaders and governments – is to go beyond the traditional economic model of “take-make-use-and-dispose.” The idea is to graduate from such a linear system towards a circular economy of take, make, use, reuse and reuse.
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With an end in sight for the Covid-19 pandemic, global boardrooms must not forgo a rare opportunity to “build back better.” The challenges, sharply redefined by the disruptions of the past year, remain daunting. How do we make supply chains and processes across sectors more resilient to global shocks? How do we protect the economically vulnerable? And above all, how do we make our economies more sustainable?
Without meeting these challenges, the unprecedented shocks of the past year threaten to return with more devastation. As the UN, WHO, and WWF have pointed out, humanity’s destruction of nature
of our global economy is circular.
8.6%
Source: World Economic Forum
By switching to a circular economy model of reducing and reusing this waste
$4.5
in economic benefits to
2030
tonnes of materials were extracted and processed last year, contributing to about half of global CO2 emissions.
92
Quick Facts
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Source: World Economic Forum
Source: World Economic Forum
Only some
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Such an economy, Yokogawa envisions, will be one in which multiple companies and businesses from any industry orchestrate business activities in a sustainable way by coexisting through the mutual utilization of each other’s assets. In particular, Yokogawa’s solutions for the manufacturing sector can contribute to a symbiotic economy, specifically an industrial symbiotic economy.
Yokogawa, the Japanese technology company, is committed to these three much-needed solutions. In recent years it has placed greater levels of industrial autonomy, more clean technologies, and symbiotic economy as part of its key strategic initiatives. The company is uniquely placed to contribute to the circular economy model, in particular towards what it envisions as a symbiotic economy.
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How do we get to such a circular world?
Among the many trends in industry, three appear critical. First, more automation of processes will be needed to reduce risks for workers and improve resilience and ensure valuable workers can shift to more value-added and creative work. Second, more clean technologies will be needed to reduce our footprint on the planet. And third, collaboration across public and private sectors, at global and local scale will be needed to share innovations to achieve greater sustainability.
Three answers: automation, innovation, and collaboration
The most famous is the Kalundborg Symbiosis in Denmark. Having evolved organically since 1961, the industrial site at Kalundborg is made up of six private and three public entities which exchange 25 different streams including water, energy and materials in closed loops. Founded on close private-public collaboration, sharing information and values, and no direct competition, the goal is to improve resilience and economic gains, while reducing the environmental impact and expenses of the enterprises. The local partnership saves for its members and the environment an impressive EUR24 million in costs, over 635,000 tons of CO2, 3.6m cubic meters of water, 100GWh of energy, and 87,000 tons of material.
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The Japanese company’s vision of a symbiotic economy can be understood as an advanced manifestation of industrial symbiosis. An industrial symbiosis, according to the Ellen McArthur Foundation, a leading advocate for a circular economy, “constitutes a local partnership where, partners provide, share and reuse resources to create shared value. The purpose of industrial symbiosis is to create loops of technical or biological materials while minimising the leakage and waste in the loops - demonstrating some key parts of a circular economy, at a local scale.”
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Although advanced levels of autonomy are not necessary for industrial symbiosis, Yokogawa believes that industrial autonomy will naturally lead to a more symbiotic economy. One reasoning for this is that when the autonomous operations of multi-collaborating ecosystems are brought together, an autonomous interaction of data and resources between separate plants can be achieved. When autonomous components, processes, individuals or even societies come together, they ideally create new and sustainable value.
The company therefore has a deep understanding of various industries and production processes. And in order to achieve a symbiotic economy, some actor will need to connect various stakeholders across industries and companies. Yokogawa believes it can work together with customers to achieve a symbiotic economy.
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By scaling up such successful sites like Kalundborg across more geographic areas and production processes, combined with higher levels of automation, Yokogawa hopes a symbiotic economy can be achieved. And it knows that its expertise will be critical in this transition.
Yokogawa has experience helping improve production, operation and maintenance efficiencies to create a more sustainable society with various companies in key industries such as materials and energy.
What’s Next for
Our Planet?
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JEPLAN has surprised, and brought smiles to the world, when in 2015 it created biofuel from old clothes collected from across Japan, using it to run a “Delorean” from the movie “Back to the Future”.
“When we launched our company in 2007, the word ‘sustainability’ was not so commonly used. But after 14 years, it is widely acknowledged as the central challenge for the whole world,” says Masaki Takao, CEO and co-founder of JEPLAN. “Our company will continue to evolve unique chemical recycling technologies which enable production of virgin quality rPET (recycled PET) from used polyester numerous times in order to create a future for our children where sustainability is taken for granted.”
information from electricity companies with those generated by the sensors, IoT, and control devices placed in water purification plants, factories and other types of plants. This data is then analyzed in order to advise customers on the most efficient timing and optimal energy mix of private-power generation to electricity purchases. In order to enable such VPPs which advance the adoption of sustainable energy, private and public partnerships will be indispensable.
Yokogawa’s recent partnership with JEPLAN is another critical case exemplifying the circular economy thinking at the heart of a symbiotic economy. In 2020, Yokogawa signed an investment partnership with the company which has a proprietary chemical recycling technology that generates high-quality resin from used PET (polyethylene terephthalate) in common materials such as polyester for clothes and packaging. Yokogawa will provide JEPLAN with its latest measurement, control, and information technologies and products for use at its plants, thus enabling state-of-the-art resource circulation operations.
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Yokogawa’s existing collaborative projects underscore the company’s capabilities to pioneer circular collaboration. The company’s virtual power plant (VPP) project is a case in point. It exemplifies the first steps towards a more full-fledged symbiotic economy can be achieved.
A VPP is a system which remotely integrates and controls energy resources such as batteries, power generation facilities, EVs and demand-response systems held by factories and homes, making them function together as if they were one single power plant.
Since 2017, Yokogawa has been participating in Japanese-government led demonstration projects to develop VPPs, building expertise in the field. The first demonstrations involved water utilities, which were later expanded to include energy resources such as those held by Yokogawa’s existing customers in the oil and chemical industry. Yokogawa integrates
Yokogawa’s partnerships for a symbiotic world
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Yokogawa currently has three sustainability goals: achieving net-zero emissions; well-being; and a circular economy. None of these can be achieved by any one company or industry.
The company has long argued and continues to believe that the answer is more technology and collaboration. With the philosophy of “Co-innovating tomorrow,” Yokogawa is forging a future where industries share and re-use resources in a symbiotic and more sustainable fashion, a world which we need to start rebuilding today.
That’s what’s next for the planet.
Unchanging purpose towards sustainability
Even with an end in sight for the Covid-19 pandemic, global boardrooms must not forgo a rare opportunity to “build back better.” One way to rebuild more sustainably is to graduate from a linear take-make-waste model to a circular economy model where waste is reused over and over. To achieve such a circular world, industries must achieve higher levels of automation and collaboration, while adopting new clean technologies. Yokogawa, the Japanese leader of automation technologies, is committed to these three goals and hopes to guide industry towards a higher stage of automation, or what it envisions as a symbiotic economy. This article explores why such symbiotic economy is necessary and how Yokogawa can lead us there.
Even with an end in sight for the Covid-19 pandemic, global boardrooms must not forgo a rare opportunity to “build back better.” One way to rebuild more sustainably is to graduate from a linear take-make-waste model to a circular economy model where waste is reused over and over. To achieve such a circular world, industries must achieve higher levels of automation and collaboration, while adopting new clean technologies. Yokogawa, the Japanese leader of automation technologies, is committed to these three goals and hopes to guide industry towards a higher stage of automation, or what it envisions as a symbiotic economy. This article explores why such symbiotic economy is necessary and how Yokogawa can lead us there.
What’s Next for
Our Planet?
Clarifying Purpose
What’s Next for
Our Planet?
Clarifying Purpose
What’s Next for
Our Planet?
What’s Next for
Our Planet?
Clarifying Purpose
Clarifying Purpose
