The Humber Estuary is located on the East Coast of England. Industrialisation of the region commenced in the 1960’s, and progressed with a fragmented pursuit, particularly in chemicals and oil and gas sectors. Organic and inorganic chemicals, oil and gas, food processing, furniture, iron and steel and other metals processing are among the region’s dominant industries, with facilities spread along both the south and north banks of the river.
The Humber Industrial Symbiosis Program was the result of an idea originated by a large global oil and gas company. The Business Council for Sustainable Development UK took the lead for a preliminary evaluation of two synergy projects that had been spoken about for some time, namely: (1) a regional Combined Heat and Power plant and (b) a chemical feedstock pipeline bundle to connect industries on the north and south banks of the river. This preliminary evaluation confirmed the potential sustainability benefits (Mirata 2004). The Humber Industrial Symbiosis Program gained momentum in 2003 and is now focused on optimisation of energy and opportunities for co-production of different chemical products (NISP 2004). Eight synergies are now in place in the Humber region.
It has been recognised that the development of the Humber program has been rather slow in terms of getting the companies interested and assuring their commitment (Mirata 2004). This has been mainly due to the fact that the Humber region is characterised as having low levels of integration among chemical and oil and gas industries, as a result of limited production of bulk petrochemical basic chemicals, heavy concentration of speciality chemicals (which rely on specific feed-stocks imported from outside the region), limited opportunities for cooperation between the inorganic chemical industries and mismatch between the scale of refineries and of the chemical companies (van Berkel 2006).
The Humber Industrial Symbiosis Program catalysed interest in several other regions, initially in West Midland and Mersey Bank (NISP 2004). This served as the platform to launch the National Industrial Symbiosis Program in 2003. In early 2005, NISP was granted £13 million funding from the Government’s Business Resource Efficiency and Waste (BREW) programme.
The following regional synergy examples are documented in this database:
By-Product Synergies
- Gypsum Recycling
- Production of Pet Food from Organic Waste
- Reuse of Vegetable Oil for Bio-Diesel Production
Utility Synergies
- information not yet available
More information about regional synergies in Humberside can be found on:
We would be interested to learn from other case study examples that could be added to this database:
This webpage was last modified on 14 February 2007.
Disclaimer: The synergy information is provided for general use and although we believe all data to be correct, CSRP can accept no responsibility for the accuracy of the information. All presented case-study examples are retrieved from publicly available resources.