The circular economy applied in industrial port territories – a reality and a part of tomorrow’s world

Nicolas Mat. Secretary General of the PIICTO Association - Industrial and Innovation Platform of Caban-Tonkin (Marseilles-Fos) The global health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has illustrated the extent to which our hyper-industrial societies are interdependent, complex, yet vulnerable. This extraordinary situation that has affected every continent has at least served to highlight two important aspects of industrial and port territories. The first is that, in a globalised economy, these port communities are key to ensuring that the stream of goods and energy needed for our societies to function continues to flow (90% of international goods traffic is shipped by sea). Secondly, though the health crisis has forced them to reduce their operations and navigate periods of difficulty, the industries based in those port communities have successfully adapted, for example producing the oxygen desperately needed by healthcare services or continuing to manage and recycle our waste (household water, hazardous waste, etc.). The City-Port territory: a strategic space for realising the circular economy In a world constantly described as changing, it is vitally important for industrial-port communities to tackle the challenge of renewing and adapting themselves. Renewing practices, perceptions, ambitions, forms of global and local cooperation, etc. Numerous projects and studies, particularly those undertaken by AIVP over the last ten years or more, have shown that most of the world’s major industrial port communities are now well aware and committed to addressing the issues raised by the energy and ecological transition, and are taking an active interest in the circular economy. View of Kalundborg Eco-Industrial Park, Denmark. The basic equation is not simple, however. These territories need to find a way for human-centric, urbanised, industrialised, port and in some cases agricultural spaces to co-exist alongside natural environments with rich biodiversity, many of them situated in estuaries or coastal areas. The challenge then is to plan ahead and balance the long-term development policies for these industrial and port activities, which generate jobs and wealth, while at the same time limiting the impacts on the environment, whether in terms of the use of space and natural resources, or in terms of emissions (atmospheric,…