Meeting Information
Agenda
Hotel and Registration Info
Support
Support for WGA's Enlibra program is provided by
the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
and by Region IX of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency
Background Information on Enlibra
Examples of Enlibra in Action
Policy Resolution
Outlining Enlibra Principles
Frequently Asked Questions
Advisory Committee
Publications, Press Releases and
Speeches
Meetings
Resource Guide
|
|
Environmental Summit
on the West II
Industrial
Environmental Innovation Track: Value for the Community, Globe and Bottom
Line
Breakout Session II
Strategies for Industrial Production
Background
For a century or more, industrial facilities often made environmental
trade offs to secure increased production. The implications of the trade
offs were either not understood or were thought of as inevitable outcomes
of economic progress.
Today, industry has rewritten the equation. Environmental performance,
public health and worker safety are viewed as key contributors to the
bottom line - not only as matters of public relations, but as indicators
of management and economic performance. Pollution indicates waste and
employee safety and morale are important contributors to productivity.
This new understanding is leading to important developments in industrial
processes and product research, design and marketing. Numerous industrial
coalitions have been formed to advance understanding and adaptation of
more environmentally sensitive processes. Those changes are having
startling impacts on emissions; they range from simple product changes to
complex technical innovations. The continuation of this trend will have an
important bearing on the environment of the West.
Goals for Breakout Sessions
What are the policy barriers to increasing the use of innovative
processes to benefit the environment? Are governmental incentives
necessary to increase this type of activity? What are the cultural
barriers to increasing the use of innovative processes and how can they be
overcome? What type of education efforts or technical assistance does
industry require to understand these opportunities and implement them?
What are the opportunities and obstacles to utilizing the Enlibra
principles to foster industrial innovation?
Panel One
Creating and Capturing Value from Industrial Wastes: By-Product Synergy
By-Product Synergy (BPS) is about creating and capturing value through
matching producers of under-valued waste streams with users, and working
with regulators to establish support for the process. BPS promotes a shift
from a waste disposal system to a reuse methodology, saving energy and
cutting emissions. The State of New Jersey has verified BPS as an
innovative environmental technology.
Host/Moderator: Robert Wilkinson, Rocky Mountain Institute
Presenters:
Panel Two
Integrated Planning for Organics Management in the Chino Basin, California
Effective local management of organic materials - biosolids, animal
manure, and green waste - is one of the most pressing environmental
challenges facing the west. Like many places, the Chino Basin in San
Bernardino County, California, faces serious water and air quality
contamination problems because of historic and current agricultural
operations. Chino's watershed problem is particularly acute: the region
has the largest concentration of dairies in the world, with 350,000 cows
that produce over one million tons of manure annually and contribute over
38,000 tons of salt that seep into the groundwater and Santa Ana River as
well as release significant amounts of methane to the air. The Chino Basin
contains one of the largest groundwater basins in Southern California and
provides critical water supplies to over 1 million people.
In 2001, the Inland Empire Utilities Agency (IEUA), a municipal water
district that provides wastewater services and wholesale water supplies
within the 272-square mile Chino Basin, developed an innovative Organics
Management Strategy that offers a coordinated, integrated (cross-media)
long-term plan for treating, recycling and locally reusing organic
materials within the Chino Basin watershed. This watershed strategy will
deliver significant water and air quality improvements, clean renewable
electric energy and recycled organic materials, and environmental water
supply and wildlife habitat benefits.
Presenter
- Martha Davis, Manager of
Strategic Policy Development, Inland Empire Utilities Agency
Panel Three
This case study will focus on the manufacture of cement, one of the
world’s most commonly used building materials. The panel will focus in
detail on several cases that Holcim US has undertaken in the West in order
to make high quality cement by utilizing mineral components as well as
alternative fuels and raw materials. Some of these materials are
byproducts of other industries like slag from the steel manufacturing
process and fly ash from the coal fired electric generation industry. The
use of these materials can have environmental benefits such as the
conservation of fossil fuels and the reduction of some emissions including
CO2 on a per ton basis. These materials and fuels are being more widely
used around the world than in the U.S. to make high quality cement and
concrete for public and private infrastructure.
Presenters
Jean Claude Roumain, Holcim US (Colorado)
Chester Goodson, Holcim US (Utah).
Materials
www.ieua.org (see organics management
strategy)
Byproduct synergy
|