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To our next governor:
You are inheriting a state with incredible opportunity. We have a budget surplus, a streamlined tax and regulatory environment and a robust economy that attracts business from all over the world. Our universities churn out top talent, and we’re securing investments to develop 21st century technologies.
However, there’s a critical missing piece from this winning hand that can no longer be glossed over: a serious approach to sustainability. In today’s global marketplace, sustainability is no longer optional but increasingly a prerequisite to compete. It’s also a catalyst for innovation, a magnet for young and top talent and a driver of economic growth.
Indiana needs a big vision on this subject but one that’s pragmatic and fits with our state. Luckily, there’s a little-known strategy that would do that, that would leverage Indiana’s strengths, take advantage of our manufacturing backbone, and help deliver on the stated objectives of your administration.
It’s called industrial ecology, a niche yet emerging field I studied closely in college. It sees industrial production as an interconnected ecosystem, identifying excess energy, water and materials from industrial plants, viewing them not as waste but as resources, and then finding economic actors who can use them. This resource-exchange strategy cuts pollution, increases savings and creates new business opportunities along the way. It’s the embodiment of both “one man’s trash is another’s treasure” and “leave no trace.”
Industrial ecology is best explained by example, and the most quintessential is in Kalundborg, Denmark. Over 30 years ago in this small industrial town, forward-thinking businessmen started exploring innovative uses for by-products from their production processes. It began with a coal plant. First, they channeled the plant’s excess heat to warm local homes and nearby fish farms. Then, they diverted the plant’s steam to fuel pharmaceutical production from Novo Nordisk, one of the world’s top producers of insulin (alongside Lilly). Novo Nordisk’s biomass waste became liquid fertilizer for local agriculture, and its excess water was filtered and returned for municipal use. And so on and so forth. One by one, wastes from energy, bio-tech, agricultural and municipal actors found new business uses, creating a closed-loop industrial ecosystem in the process.
Indiana should lead with this approach. We’re the most manufacturing-intensive state in the Union and a national logistics hub and have a collaborative spirit, to kick. This sustainability strategy is also one that’s inspired by free-market exchange and driven by the private sector as opposed to one based on command and control.
Embracing industrial ecology would accomplish key goals in your administration, too:
◗ Promote economic growth. Incentivizing the sale and reuse of industrial waste would increase profits and unearth new economic opportunities, driving growth across sectors.
◗ Drive entrepreneurship. Seeking novel uses for excess resources would create new market niches, spurring entrepreneurship.
◗ Foster innovation.Exchange across sectors will encourage cross-pollination of existing technologies and create new ones needed for resource-exchange.
◗ Attract investment. Becoming a leader of sustainable industrial practices would draw in domestic and international investors, attracting new partners, capital and investment.
◗ Boost Indiana’s brand. Embracing a bold, uniquely manufacturing sustainability agenda would burnish our image for both future workers and employers.
At some point, Indiana will need to level up its sustainability profile; it’s a topic that’s not going away.
Catalyzing industrial ecology across the state could be done with a light touch by proactively promoting this philosophy or setting up a working group or position at the IEDC. With a move like this, in four years you could help ensure Indiana is a leader, not a laggard, on a topic critical for the future and future generations.•
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Gemelas is chief operating officer at Climate Solutions Fund, outstanding fellow of Mitch Daniels Leadership Foundation and a proud greek-American. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.
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