Circular City Ports - Workbook

2 Ecopal Dunkirk Control of resource consumption + reuse of
short-circuit products = added value for the
maintenance of activities and job creation”
Location Scale Tag
76
City
Port Region
Platform
Industrial
Symbiosis
delta
CUD, the port, regional
and local institutions,
ADEME, EU
hinterland
Material Sorting plant
Industry
industrial port
port and city
companies
ECOPAL
Industry
city port
company
company
city
flow of goods flow of knowledge or influence industrial symbiosis other
What’s happening? How does it happen?
The ECOPAL network (Economy and Ecology
Partners in Local Action) includes 480 members,
large companies, SMEs, associations or individuals.
It supports and offers services to member companies
to guide them towards new, more environmental
economic models inspired by the circular economy
and industrial ecology. The two principles that
guide their work are mutualization (optimize the
means of collection, transport, and treatment thanks
to joint management) and substitution (waste from
one customer becomes the raw material for the other
customer).
Why is this an interesting circular initiative for
circular harbours?
After several years of experimentation with pooling
services such as waste collection and other services
like improving area signage, ECOPAL decided in 2007
to carry out an Inventory of Industrial Material Flows
(IFIM) to identify more broadly the potential and opportunities
for synergies between companies. Today
it saves 22 tons of CO2 and more than 210.000€ per
year. It recycles about 250 tonnes of waste through a
total of 79 collections per year. According to ECOPAL,
their approach allows companies to:
● Increase knowledge of waste and material
flows
● Apply industrial and territorial ecology
● Preserve the resources that are present
within those companies and territories