Memorandum submitted by International Synergies Limited

About International Synergies Limited

1. International Synergies Ltd (ISL) was established in 2005 to identify, develop and deliver industrial ecology based solutions for industry worldwide. ISL applies its knowledge and expertise of large scale industrial symbiosis, industrial ecology and resource efficiency across a number of key areas including Energy, Waste, Water, Carbon, Resource Management, Policy Development, Research and Education, and Corporate Social Responsibility. ISL also works closely with various Environmental protection agencies, and though a specialist consulting division supports the public and private sector on industrial process and corporate regulation in all areas of PPC, carbon reduction, REACH and general environmental legislation. The company has an annual turnover of over £10 million.

2. ISL is already successfully delivering numerous products, programmes and services across the globe from the UK, Europe, the USA, Mexico and China.

3. In the UK ISL's best known project is the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP), funded by Defra along with their Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts which is helping British businesses identify commercial opportunities to turn their waste into valuable commodity resources. Twice ranked 1st by DEFRA in it its league table of funded programmes (in 2005/06 and 2006/07) NISP has proven exceptional value for money over its first three years of operation. The programmes innovative and facilitative approach has, through its 10,000 members, already diverted over 4 million tonnes of waste form landfill, reduced carbon output by over 4 million tonnes of CO₂ and saved over 5.5 million tonnes of virgin materials, whilst delivering hundreds of new jobs, eliminated hazardous waste, reduced industry use of potable water, delivered in excess of £110 million in cost savings, additional sales of £127 million whilst leveraging over £87 million in private investment for new reprocessing/recycling facilities across the UK.

4. Due to the programme's impressive results and positive impact, NISP's terminology, commercial approach, business engagement model and efficacy are increasingly being emulated by other programmes both in the UK and internationally.

5. Cited as an exemplar programme by the European Commission (the only exemplar eco-innovation programme from the UK), ISL have also received considerable interest for the potential replication of its industrial symbiosis approach across Europe, The United States of America, China, Mexico, South Africa, India, Brazil and Australia.

6. With a pilot programme already established and operational in the State of Illinois, America, substantive discussions have recently begun for further pilots in France, Hungary, Eire, Portugal, Estonia, Germany and Romania and a number of collaborative EU funding programmes have been submitted to support these initiatives.

7. Now in its third year of operation ISL also provide support internationally to DfID and DEFRA to the Sustainable Development Dialogues programmes (SDD) in both China and Mexico (with further potential deployment in Brazil, South Africa and India before end of 2008.)

ISL's involvement in DfID's Sustainable Development Dialogues: CHINA

This evidence outlines current activity which demonstrates the effectiveness of current strategy to engage with China on international development, especially relating to climate change, sustainable development, poverty reduction, energy security, effectiveness of DFID's 'added value' compared to other donors, and an example of work being undertaken to increase China's relationship with multilateral development institutions.

8. In March 2005, the UK Government published its Sustainable Development Strategy. Part of this strategy included the implementation of a series of Sustainable Development Dialogues (SDDs) to help countries across the world address the challenges of sustainable development. The UK's own sustainable development ambitions depend on the actions of countries such as China, India, Mexico, South Africa and Brazil because they cannot be achieved globally without their cooperation.

9. Since 2007 ISL has been leading an SDD pilot project in China to implement a circular economy pilot in Yunnan Province in a bid to help China develop long term resource efficiency and sustainable economic growth. Working closely with in country counterparts, (including the Yunnan Environment Protection Bureau) the project involves representatives from ISL making a number of missions to China over a period of two years to establish and develop the pilot circular economy project.

10. The SDD pilot enables ISL and its partners to demonstrate how industrial ecology can contribute towards sustainability by sharing best practice from its leading UK project, NISP. The Dialogues build on existing co-operation between countries, which fits perfectly with ISL's aims for global recognition and acceptance for its methodology and projects.

11. By working directly with Chinese industry ISL is helping to identify business opportunities for China's companies to influence the upstream side of sustainable production and consumption in the region and bringing together companies and organisations of all sectors and sizes to tackle carbon dioxide emissions through resource efficiency.

12. Over the two years of the pilot programme ISL are working with the Environment Agency and Envirowise, its UK project partners, to develop sustainable activities across a network of Chinese companies. The Environment Agency is leading on both policy and legislative engagement and advice.

13. Working closely with the Yunnan Environment Protection Bureau (YEPB) the pilot is establishing an active industrial symbiosis network to demonstrate and deliver practical examples of companies within the province benefiting from the industrial symbiosis approach; becoming more profitable, improve the environment, whilst also helping to reach their goal of developing a circular economy.

14. The Pilot is already making good progress and through two major workshops in 2007 already identified over 267,000 tonnes of potential waste diversion that can be used as input materials to suitably matched Yunnan companies.

15. The project team also recently supported YEPB in conducting a Pollution Source Census (as part of a national program) including the production of a manual for best practice. Further training programs are being developed in 'cleaner design', which will enhance the capacity of the Cleaner Production Centre to improve legal compliance and the environmental performance of products across their life cycle. This pilot programme is therefore already proving very popular, generating significant cost reductions, new sales and job creation, as well as important environmental benefits such as reduced greenhouse gases and landfill diversion.

16. In November 2007 the project team successfully connected with the Kunming National Economic and Technical Development Zone (KNETZ) and worked to establish an industrial symbiosis network specifically for the development zone. The KNETZ is located in the Eastern part of Kunming City with a current developed area of 9.8 km2. The planned area is 55.7 km2. The area focuses on modern manufacturing, foreign investment, export and hi-tech development and the KNETZ specific IS-Network alone has the potential to involve some 200 companies in resource efficiency activities and in effect the circular economy.

17. The first of a series of KNETZ industrial synergies workshops was held on 23 January 2008 and involved approximately 40 companies. This workshop was conducted by local staff trained by the project in the previous YEPB networking events and represents a successful case of local capacity enhancement in industrial symbiosis approach and methodology.

18. The KNETZ is particularly water stressed and guided by the management of the Zone the January workshop also identified a number of potential water and sanitation projects which could lead to increased reuse of water by industry, both for amenities and in production. These projects are currently being investigated by the KETDZ management who are very keen to take part in this UK-China cross working relationship.

19. The program is also starting to have resonance outside of Yunnan with interest having been established with the Chongqing Municipal Environment Protection Bureau and city development zones and industrial parks, with the help of the British Council.

20. In October 2007 a delegation of senior officials from the Wuhan province also visited the ISL project team, arranged through local trade and industry official, to establish links with the pilot project and exchange knowledge and best practise. The delegation included the Director of Wuhan Environmental Protection Bureau, Vice Director of Wuhan Urban Administration Bureau and senior officials from the Wuhan Foreign Investment and Promotion Department. A further reciprocal meeting was subsequently held in January 2008 at the UK/China Business Summit, Beijing.

21. Further interest in the pilot programme in November 2007 led to senior members of the Chinese Government engaging the project team to see for themselves how UK companies were benefiting both financially and environmentally through adoption of the industrial symbiosis approach. As part of a wider UK visit, a total of 19 delegates including Vice Minister Du Ying and the Deputy Director Generals of both the Department of Environmental Resources and the Department of Regional Economy were treated to a guided river tour of key industrial symbiosis developments undertaken by NISP in the Thames Gateway area. The delegates were joined by key representatives of the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Department for International Development (DFID), and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

22. The delegation passed city landmarks at Westminster before heading south along the river to Woolwich where practitioners from NISP's London office presented details of their work with Tate and Lyle which is set to divert 23,000 tonnes of calcium carbonate cake waste per year from landfill. Through NISP, a diverse range of alternative uses for the cake waste are being trialled, from cement manufacturing to agricultural use in landspread. There were also presentations from Gerry Heward, Director of Sea and Air Ltd, and Mark Edwards, Health, Safety and Environment Officer at Tube Lines; the company currently managing the running of two of London's underground lines. NISP has been working closely with Tube Lines on their 'Zero Waste to Landfill' project aimed to find solutions for a number of waste streams arising at the Kingsbury embankment restoration site.

23. Increased interest has recently led to calls to scale up the Yunnan Pilot's activity with respect to industrial symbiosis. The ISL project team have therefore been actively collaborating with the Yunnan Environmental Protection Bureau and KNETZ in developing a first-round bid for EU funding under the SWITCH Asia Fund.

24. The proposal was actively supported by China's United Nations Industrial Development Organization Investment and Technology Promotion Office (UNIDO ITPO-China); a UNIDO field operational office with full diplomatic status. They provide a wide range of professional services that facilitate greater access for China to investment resources, technology and know-how. In addition to providing research, consultation and assistance to ease the process of internationalization of local sectors and enterprises, the Office also plays many other roles, acting as a consultant to the formulation of government policy and decision making, a facilitator enabling access to domestic and international resources, a supporter in the implementation of development projects and an organizer of forums and cooperation platforms covering a broad range of fields.

25. UNIDO ITPO-China support proved instrumental in developing the scale up plans and in coordinating the submission of the SWITCH Asia Fund project first round proposal.

26. ISL have just received notice that the initial submission for SWITCH Asia Funding has been successful and the consortium has now been invited to tender a full project submission later in the year.

DFID's support to poverty reduction in China in both rural and urban settings and especially to basic services including health, sanitation and water

27. Whilst the activity of the pilot project is being very well received and many initiatives and opportunities are being identified, it is worth noting that the terms of reference of the DfIDs funding preclude the pilot from being able to work with the tobacco industry in China.

28. However, during a recent visit the project team were taken to a sewage works that treats the domestic sewage from a tobacco company. It was identified that there is spare capacity at the works for additional sewage and the KEDTZ are hoping to connect some of the local houses to the works so that the sewage could be diverted from direct discharge to the river (which itself is already badly polluted).

29. KEDTZ asked for assistance as part of the project for this activity as a natural extension of the current project and were given general assistance (pointing out things they need to consider such as loading rates, peak flows, seasonal variations etc. but held back on taking things much further.)

30. During Zhou Bo's visit to the UK, ISL also discussed better utilisation of sewage works' anaerobic digestion (AD) plants. Kunming has a number of AD plants and the gas generated is fed to domestic housing for heating. They talked about additional inputs to the plants of high strength organic waste to increase the methane generation. This will be discussed further during the next mission to China in late April 2008.

The effectiveness of the UK Government's strategy to engage with China on international development

31. The ability to support China in the future with this approach has been predicated on a strong (world leading base) being present in the UK. Recently Defra cuts to NISP (over 40%) has potentially weakened the UK's world lead in industrial symbiosis. It is clear that the Chinese Government are both keen and excited about the UK's industrial symbiosis approach as are other countries involved in the Sustainable Development Dialogues and any further support that can be given to ISL/NISP to maintain both the UK's world lead and its ability to help other nations, particularly China, would be most welcome.