Structured approach
<\/b>This cooperation was initially based around ‘loose’ projects, such as collecting and monitoring environmental data, but gradually over the years, a more structured approach has been adopted. Last year, the Moerdijk Business and Industry Circle, Moerdijk Port Authority, Moerdijk municipality, Province of Noord-Brabant, Ministry of Waterways and Public Works and District Water Board Brabantse Delta, joined the ‘Moerdijk Long-term Sustainable Connections Programme 2011-2012’. In this programme the six parties have laid down their ambitions for a wide range of sustainable projects.<\/p>\n
Cooperation by clustering From heat network to grand design The search for sustainable links between companies and the surrounding area is only one of four pillars on which the Moerdijk Long-term Sustainable Connections Programme is based. Individual companies are also encouraged to make every effort to use the best sustainable business practices. Companies that are ‘front runners’ in this field are named as such by the business and industry circle and act as ambassadors for sustainable enterprise. In addition, companies liaise with each other to make better use of various transport means, collective passenger transport and joint facilities. Finally, social sustainability is an important issue, for example, optimum labour participation from within the local community but also active and open communication with the local community.<\/p>\n Realising ambitions, seeking new opportunities Even though that support is now finished, the project organisation continues to retain the far-reaching ambitions the parties aspire to. The Moerdijk Port and Industrial Estate wants to be nationally and internationally recognised as the ultimate sustainable industrial estate. We make every effort to realise the ambitions that were laid down and keep looking for new opportunities. We want to show everyone that there are many opportunities for sustainable activities and that these are not only suitable for the larger industrial estates with chemical giants, but also that many companies can profit from these. We want to inspire individual companies on our estate and roll this out to other industrial estates in the Netherlands, Europe and even beyond. A Dutch delegation of developers travelled to China recently and they used the Appelweg Moerdijk heat network as an example. The fact that Moerdijk is able to inspire companies in such a world economy is something to be proud of.<\/p>\n The Moerdijk Long-Term Sustainable Connections Programme 2011-2012<\/i> is supported by:<\/p>\n Moerdijk Business and Industry Circle<\/p>\n Moerdijk Port Authority<\/p>\n Moerdijk municipality Province of Noord-Brabant<\/p>\n Ministry of Waterways and Public Works<\/p>\n District Water Board Brabantse Delta<\/p>\n Moerdijk Port and Industrial Estate encourages:<\/p>\n 1. Sustainable links: closing cycles and symbiosis for efficient use of energy and warmth, water and residual product streams;<\/p>\n 2. Sustainable business practices: application of sustainable energy and realisation of innovative production processes at individual companies;<\/p>\n 3. Sustainable design and freeing up roads: multimodal transport, collective passenger transport and joint facilities to reduce strains on road transport;<\/p>\n 4. Social sustainability: increase labour participation from within the local area, active and open communication with the local area and shared facilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Companies, authorities and the Moerdijk Port Authority at the Moerdijk Port and Industrial Estate in the Netherlands, have been working together on sustainable connections since the end of the 1990s, writes Jacco Rentrop, environmental manager at the Moerdijk Port Authority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-2475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projects-initiatives-greenport"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2475"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=2475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/strong>The Moerdijk Port and Industrial Estate is one of the most modern industrial estates with sea port facilities in the world. It employs approximately 10,000 people. The gross surface area of the estate is 2400 hectares and contains five docks. The industrial estate is divided into six clusters. Many similar businesses are sited close together. The Industrial Park is the largest sub-area on the industrial estate and was developed for chemical and heavy industry activities. Companies involved in storage and transhipment, processing and distribution of piece goods and containers can make use of a modern central transhipment terminal providing excellent connections including an internal route to surrounding companies. The Ecopark is a special sub-area on the industrial estate consisting of companies involved in environmental (recycling) and energy technology. There is a deliberate move towards a cluster lay out, because this offers many opportunities for symbiosis. Over the years, various companies have been able to find a partner when it comes to exchanging residual product streams. For example, heat is exchanged by means of the Appelweg heat network. The BEWA company converts food waste from establishments including restaurants and chip factories into biogas. BEWA used part of the generated green power and heat in their raw material storage facilities and production process. However, BEWA still had a heat surplus and sought ways of transporting this to two neighbouring companies. Since the end of 2009, Bolsius Grondstoffen uses this heat to keep paraffin in liquid form. Another company, Drecht Coating Services, uses the residual heat for their coating drying process.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>The Appelweg heat network forms the first part of the Energy Web at Moerdijk Port and Industrial Estate. In the near future this loop system will enable companies to exchange heat, steam and CO2, whereby energy that would otherwise have been lost, is used effectively. However, parties who have signed up to the Moerdijk Long-term Sustainable Connections Programme<\/i> want to take this even further. A couple of parties are currently looking at opportunities to create a logistics park. We are also thinking about creating a greenhouse complex close to our estate. Both the logistics park and the green houses can use residual heat, steam and CO2 from the port and industrial estate. There may even be opportunities further afield, such as industrial estates in Dinteloord and Geertruidenberg. It is then not just a Moerdijk Port and Industrial Estate Energy Web, but instead a \u2018grand design\u2019, which fits in perfectly with the entire region’s programme of putting biobased production on the international map. This is a process where every effort is made to limit the use of fossil raw materials. And more important: exchanging residual heat, steam or CO2 will help to reduce the strain on the link between economic growth and environmental issues.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>The ambitions laid down in the long-term programme are an extension of projects set in motion in the past. As we have been monitoring environmental pressures on the estate for 13 years, we have a good idea of what opportunities there are. Companies see that these opportunities not only provide environmental advantages but also provide economic ones which make many companies actively use them. This was also noticed by the Province of Noord-Brabant, who was supporting innovative and experimental projects in various locations in Noord-Brabant from 2007 to 2011. Moerdijk Port and Industrial Estate was named as one of six pilot projects, setting an example for other estates with regard to sustainable innovative solutions. Various initiatives were adopted and the support from the province helped to boost these initiatives even more.<\/p>\n