Grontmij and Agro Food Parks

Grontmij and Agro Food Parks

Grontmij
Our profile
Grontmij, established in 1915, is a leading sustainable design, engineering and management consultancy active in the growth
markets of water, energy, transportation and sustainable planning and design. We are ranked the fourth largest consultancy in
Europe and are listed on the Euronext Stock Exchange. We have an extensive network of offices with almost 300 offices across
Europe and a further 50 offices globally.
Our vision
Making our daily working and living environments more sustainable.
Our mission
To be the leading European sustainable design, engineering and management consultancy for the built and natural environment.
Our company
We are active in the growth markets of water, energy, transportation, sustainable planning and life cycle asset management. At the
heart of our business is the sustainability by design principle. It is a leading value proposition for our customers.
Our values
We express our pride and passion by working closely together – with colleagues and customers. We support attempts to improve
sustainability of working methods and end results through innovation and creativity. That is how we grow, both as a business and as
professionals.
Our history
We began in 1913 as a company focused on cultivating wasteland, helping farmers protect against flooding and reclaiming land.
We still do this and much, much more. Our value chain of services stretches from major renewable water and infrastructure projects
through designing efficient and environmentally-sensitive mobility and transportation networks to shaping and monitoring our
built and green living spaces.
Our future
We look to the future to enhance the world we live in. By applying sustainability considerations to all our design, consultancy and
management services right across the value chain, highly-skilled expert professionals are able to create lasting solutions that plan
for, connect and respect the future.
Our value chain
Delivery of services stretches from mayor renewable water and energy infrastructure through design-ing efficient and
environmentally-sensitive mobility and transportation networks to shaping our urban and green living spaces.
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Our focus
We focus on combining our skills internationally within four business line. This allows us to leverage local knowledge and
international innovations and combine these with strong services delivery to a global client base.
Our four business lines are:
Planning & Design
covers the multidisciplinary services such as environmental management and design, urban planning (including urban-agro food
production processing), building, construction, land use, leisure and land-scaping – everything which influences the places and
spaces within which people live and work.
Transportation & Mobility
covers services for mobility management, roads, railways, tunnels, waterways, traffic management systems and airports – all
elements of enabling mobility and movement.
Water & Energy
covers services for water, waste water treatment, industry, process, sustainable industrial processes, energy techniques and
renewable energy – all of which are linked by the types of (technical) proc-esses inherent to the work we do.
Monitoring & Testing
covers all scientific and technical knowledge used in construction, including geotechnical studies, structural and material
diagnostics and pathologies, product audits and certifications and mainte-nance and monitoring for complex projects, inspections
and tests both on site and in the laboratories.
At the core of our business is the principle of sustainability by design, which is a leading value propo-sition for our customers.
Grontmij is the fourth largest engineering consultancy in Europe with almost 300 offices across the European region and a further
50 offices globally. We have nearly 11,000 professionals around the world. Grontmij is listed at NYSE Euronext.
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GRONTMIJ in Asia
Grontmij has been active in Asia for more than 40 years in infrastructure, environ-mental and water projects. We have offices
throughout Asia, notably in Vietnam, China and India. On project basis we work in other Asian countries as well.
Grontmij China
Grontmij has been active in China for over 15 years. Grontmij China is participating in major projects in China and delivering several
value added services. Grontmij has partnership agreements with leading Chinese engineering companies. The focus of Grontmij
China is on projects in the sustain-able built environment. Recently, we established our office in Wuhan, under the name of Grontmij
Hubei Engineering Consulting Co. Ltd
Agri business parks
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Grontmij and Agro Food Parks

Benefits of agro business parks
Economic
• Advantages of scale through industrial production & processing
• Significant cost reductions & increased profit margins
• Optimization through proven advanced economic modelling;
• No seasonality/ no land dependency;
• Increased output;
• Independency of fossil fuel pricing;
• High value products.
Environment
• Optimization + minimization in the use of water
• Re-use of water
• Re-use of waste & by products
• CO2 re-use
• Re(use) of manure
Food Safety
• Tracking & tracing
• Input/output control
• Easier disease control / bio security implementation
Logistics
• New business models possible by implementation of distribution models
• Additional logistical activities
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The Grontmij Approach
Grontmij has an integrated approach towards agro business parks. This approach is not only focussed on development, but also
towards the operational & maintenance phase.
We work closely with the contract-partner and also with others partners in different possible business models in order to create the
optimal result.
Commissioning &
Start-up
Operations
Procurement &
Construction
Demand Analysis
Design
Planning
Modelling
Grontmij has considerable experience in the development
of agribusiness and agribusiness parks around the world,
including China. Agro business is a typical example of providing
added value through a combination of sustainable design and
comprehensive life-cycle management.
Our concept of Eco-agro business parks provides in an
agricultural production and processing which takes place in
a most sophisticated, highly technological industrial way. An
agro park can be consid-ered as a system innovation in the
field of urban agro-food production and processing. It consists
of spatial clustering of the total chain of production, spatial
clustering of different agro production, spa-tial combination
of agro processing, research & development, trade and other
business activities. Other business activities can add to a better
economic performance of the agribusiness parks.
The spatial and technical design of the agro and non-agro
functions like energy production, waste and water and
management is in accordance to the principals of sustainability
and “cradle to cradle”.
In recent years Grontmij successfully completed an impressive
number agro food related projects. The role of Grontmij in
these projects can be: initiating, analyzing, planning, advising,
designing, catalyzing, organizing, engineering, tendering,
supervision, aftercare
An insight of the expertise can be given by the following
thematic summary some supported by se-lected reference
projects, which are mentioned specifically below. Services for
agro business parks include:
• economic modelling
• integrated area development
• spatial planning and clustering of other functions
• technical design
• energy and waste management
• (re)use of heat, electricity and CO¬2
• geothermal energy
• improvement of water management
• life cycle and asset management
• environmental impact assessment
• sustainable building techniques
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Examples
Sustainable energy
• Initiating, organizing, financing
and engineering an energy web in
greenhouse area ‘Zuidplaspolder’
making using of different energy
sources (geothermal, CHP)
• Completing a feasibility study of using
geothermic energy in greenhouses in
the town of Bleiswijk (NL)
• Completing a feasibility study of
designing and building an energy
neutral greenhouse in Heerhugowaard
• Engineering a heat and CO2
distribution system near industrial
district of Sluiskil (South of the
Netherlands) for a greenhouse area of
168 ha.
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Sustainable water management systems
• Using wastewater as irrigation water, by designing and
building a decentralized waste water treatment plant in large
greenhouse areas
• Advising national government on how to deal with the
temporally shortage of fresh water supply for horti- and
agricultural areas.
Spatial planning
• Re-developing a suburban area (500 ha) combining a number of functions: housing, recreation, water storage, ecological zone
(Business case Poelzone).
• Potential study for a new location of a large greenhouse areas in the Netherlands making use of a number of parameters and
using ‘the layer approach’ with a number of essential selection crite-ria’s.
• Advising national, regional and local governmental or private organizations where we made vi-sions of the sustainable
developing of the greenhouse areas.
Financial studies
• Conducting cost Benefit Analyses for renovating greenhouse areas.
• Completing business cases for a number of new greenhouse areas.
Business development
• Initiating and developing a large greenhouse area with investing companies and local partners (‘Agriport A7’ and
‘Koekoekspolder’).
Engineering
• Providing technical consultancy
• Engineering infrastructural works (i.e. roads, waterways) or public facilities.
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Grontmij and Agro Food Parks

Landfill with biogas extraction plant, Erfeishan Wuhan
• Feasibility study, design, tendering, supervision, training, capacity building, aftercare (overall 6 years)
• Feasibility Study as option to CO2 stripping, from the biogas
• Feasibility study biogas from waste water sludge, Wuhan
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References
Agriport A7
The most profit can be achieved if climate solutions can be
combined with profit optimization. This really helps to open
doors and climate advantages can be great. The greenhouse
farming area of Agriport A7 is an agribusiness centre in
Wieringermeer where the competitive advantage is largely
gained by clustering logistic movements. Both the entrepreneur
and the climate profit from it. In addition, lots of innovations
in the field of sustainability were introduced in this enormous
greenhouse farming area. Underground storage of rainwater,
heat and cold storage systems, reuse of residual heat flows; all
aimed at maximising profit by saving energy! Grontmij was the
driving force behind this 530 Ha, EUR 400 mln and 100% CO2
neutral investment.
Greenport Shanghai
On the initiative of Wageningen UR, Transforum and agricultural
entrepreneurs from Limburg, a master plan has been drawn
up to develop an agro-food park on Chongming Island in
the estuary of the Yangtze river, near Shanghai. Grontmij
supported the consortium in creating and specifying this
master plan Greenport Shanghai should become the showcase
of sustainable production of high-quality food close to a large
city. In the park, production, processing and trade functions are
integrated. Production takes place according to the cradle-2-
cradle principles. It operates with closed cycles, reusing all the
residual products and by-products.
Energy web ”Zuidplaspolder”
The Zuidplaspolder is situated in the Rotterdam/Zoetermeer/
Gouda triangle. In the next few years, this area will see many
developments in the field of housing construction, greenery
and water, companies and greenhouse farming. Led by the
provincial authorities of Zuid-Holland, the municipal and
provincial authorities, the environmental movement and
market parties have jointly taken the initiative to carry out
these developments in a sustainable way. In association with
partners, Grontmij has set up and negotiated a covenant
containing agreements on the use of sustainable energy. The
essence of the covenant is that at least 20% of the energy used
must be sustainable energy. The energy performance score on
the location is at least 8. The energy usage in the greenhouse
farming sector was assessed first, because its level of energy
usage is relatively high. In addition, a CO2 pipeline must be
installed in the area to allow the horticulture sector to use
energy in a sustainable way, and energy webs that can be linked
if possible and necessary are constructed in every cluster.
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Grontmij and Agro Food Parks

Water
Design and realization of a sustainable water management
system In Bleiswijk, the Netherlands, Grontmij developed a top
end greenhouse area of around 100 hectares with production,
education and R&D. Essential part of the project was the design
and construction of a decentralized waste water treatment
plant. This still ongoing and unique project is the first in the
world with a semi-closed water cycle. As a following a fully
closed system will be designed in the Zuidplaspolder with a
fully closed water cycle and reusing also the nutrients.
Production and optimization calculation
framework
Decision support tools for the horticultural sector are widely
available, however none of them are specified for the local
horticultural sector in China. Most decision support tools for
Horticulture are aimed at developed horticultural sectors in the
Netherlands where the knowledge level is high. With partners
Grontmij is able to develop a controlled environment for the
greenhouse in order to reach
Residual heat and CO2 for market
gardeners
The industry releases a lot of residual heat that can still be used.
This saves energy and reduces CO2 emission. Successfully
using residual heat requires a well thought-out distribution
and delivery system. In Terneuzen, Grontmij supervises the
engineering and execution of the WarmCO2 project. Residual
heat and CO2 produced by fertilizer factory Yara are used in the
168-ha greenhouse complex of Glastuinbouw Terneuzen. An
ingenious heating network transports approximately 130 MW
of heat to the greenhouse farming companies. By reusing the
energy and CO2, the market gardeners save up to 90% in fossil
fuels. This makes Glastuinbouw Terneuzen the most sustainable
greenhouse farming area in the Netherlands.
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Cooling
In the year 2010 Grontmij completed a design and research
project for the harbour Rotterdam, one of the most economical
important harbours in the world. The aim of the research project
called ‘cool-port’ was designing a sustainable freezing and
cooling facility to store the large amount of fresh agri and food
products for import and export through Europe. As a following
up similar projects are carried out in other harbours in the
Netherlands and Curaçao.
Design Agriparc Wuxi (Jiangsu province,
China)
Set-up and design for the Masterplan for Wujin Agropark.
Grontmij made the designs and the Infrastructure. The project is
currently under construction.
Hotspot climate and agriculture
North Holland
Grontmij acknowledged the influence climate change would
have on agriculture, and the resulting effect on the future
development of the rural areas, at an early stage. That is
why, in association with LTO Noord and the Plant Research
International institutes in Wageningen, Grontmij is carrying out
an investigation into the desired adaptation strategies, under
the BSIK* programme “Klimaat voor Ruimte” (“Climate changes
Spatial Planning”). It has become clear that several crops will
suffer as a result of drought, flooding, warmer winters, more
warm and humid periods, causing thousands of Euros worth
of damage per ha on an annual basis. In association with the
sector, Grontmij is researching in what way – either through
developmental measures or management measures – damage
can be prevented, and what those measures will mean for the
regional infrastructure (such as the soil hydrology) and for other
functions in the area.
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Partners in business
Grontmij’s approach is focussed towards partnerships. Specific knowledge can be obtained and used through our extensive
network. Examples of partnerships are:
• GREENPORT HOLLAND
INTERNATIONAL
(network of 28 leading Dutch
companies in horticulture)
• KIEMT
(Energy and Environmental
Technology-cluster in the Netherlands
(east) region)
• Orange Pig
(cooperation of 13 leading Dutch
companies in pig breeding/rearing in
China)
Grontmij specialists
Roelof Kooistra Alex Arkesteijn Han Hartman Lennart van der Burg
Enrico Moens Hans van den Berg René ten Brinke
Contact
Grontmij
René ten Brinke
Grontmij China
+ 31 652 658 066
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Grontmij
De Holle Bilt 22
3732 HM De Bilt
PO Box 203
3730 AE De Bilt
The Netherlands
T +31 30 220 79 11
F +31 30 220 01 74