Translations

GUITANG GROUP – an industrial eco-process

4. Environment

Green design

Sector Food-processing

Year 2008

Country China

Transmitter

Context

Climate change, increasing prices of energy and raw materials are risks for companies. New business models such as industrial ecologies are being developed to try to control these changes.The Guitang group in China decided to implement a profitable, environmentally-friendly system that offers a competitive edge.

Objectives

- Becoming more competitive by building a business ecosystem to optimize the circuit of the incoming and outgoing elements of the various production lines.

APPROACH

The Guitang Group grouped a number of plants together to develop an industrial ecology system in Guigang city. It aims at re-using the joint products from the various production lines and reducing pollution and costs for waste disposal as a result.The complex includes: a distillery, a paper pulp plant, a toilet paper plant, a fertilizer plant, cement works, a power station and some affiliated units.

First, sugar cane from the farms is sent to the sugar refineries to make sugar. Some waste, such as residual juices or “bagasse” (fibrous residues from sugar cane) is generated by this production. This waste is sent to the alcohol plant and paper mill, respectively, to produce alcohol and paper. Then, the waste from the alcohol plant is sent to the fertilizer plant to produce fertilizers for the farms. Finally, rubbish derived from paper manufacturing is sent to the cement kiln to produce cement.