LOW-CARBON BENEFIT OF INDUSTRIAL SYMBIOSIS FROM A SCOPE-3 PERSPECTIVE: A CASE STUDY IN CHINA

Under the pressure of climate change, reducing the Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) emissions is the key issues to keep sustainable development, especially for rapid industrialization of China. Industrial symbiosis provides a system innovation to fight climate change, and accounting for the Scope of GHGs inventory provide a new perspective for low carbon policy making, while few studies pay attention to the combination of them. Under this circumstance, this study calculates the Scope 3 CO₂ emissions and its reduction under promoting IS in China. Based on one on site survey, we conduct the case study in the industrial cluster of one typical industrial city in China. Results highlight that if all the proposed industrial symbiosis and renewable energy utilization scenarios are implemented, the Scope 3 emission would reduce by 1350295.66 tCO₂ , of which, the emission in terms of up-stream material consumption and down-stream waste disposal would be reduced by 899776.04 and 452928.30 tCO₂ respectively. The emission in terms of transportation would increase by 2408.68 tCO₂ . While industrial symbiosis does effectively reduce the Scope 3 emission, to enhance the transportation efficiency is necessary for its improvement. Finally, policy implications on the ever-improvement of industrial symbiosis promotion and the future research concerns are proposed and discussed.