Promotion of Low-Carbon City Through Industrial and Urban System Innovation: Japanese Experience and China’s Practice

There is a dilemma to balance economic growth and low carbonization. Industrial symbiosis (IS) provides a system innovation to help industries fight climate change and pursue sustainable urban development. Little attention is paid to this in literature. Under this circumstance, the present study reviews the IS and low-carbon city practice in Japan, focusing on two national initiatives namely, eco-town project and smart city project.A comprehensive urban and industrial system innovation model is proposed. Then, we transfer the model to China and conduct a quantified case study to calculate the environmental benefits of promoting IS projects, including CO₂ emissions reduction potential, in two cities of China, namely Jinan and Liuzhou.With the actual national project in Jinan as an advanced example, new scenarios related to IS are designed for Liuzhou, including comprehensive energy network, waste plastics recycling, scrap tires recycling, and flying ash recycling. The material/waste and energy exchange is quantified in the IS network, as well as the related environmental benefit. The material/energy exchange is over 10 million tons/20,000 tce in Jinan’s case and 2.5 million tons/45,000 tce in Liuzhou’s case. Results highlight that IS could effectively reduce CO₂ emissions. The total reduction potential amounts to 3,244,050 tCO2/year and 2,347,880 tCO₂/year in Jinan and Liuzhou. Finally, policy implications on the continuous improvement of industrial symbiosis and sustainable urban development are proposed and discussed.