Abstract
Recycling is one of the most important principles of both natural and industrial ecosystem development. However, recycling ecosystems' complexity, and the risk problems generated by the complexity, will increase with the number of process units in industrial ecosystems. An integrated chain analysis methodology was proposed to describe the profit possibility of firm-based industrial ecosystems, which combined material flow analysis and chain analysis of economic value. The validity of this methodology was shown by a case study of the Yima Mining Corporation. The simulation indicates that recycling in a firm-based industrial ecosystem helps the Yima Mining Corporation increase its profit possibility from 38.96% in its coal mining sector to 80.37% in the entire industrial ecosystem. Application of the proposed integrated chain simulation shows that this methodology is robust for exploring the profitability of firm-based industrial ecosystems, and that it is a useful complement to material flow and economic value chain analysis to study features of industrial ecosystems such as in the coal mining industry.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 458-463 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Xitong Fangzhen Xuebao / Journal of System Simulation |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Publication status | Published - 20 Jan 2008 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Coal mining
- Industry chain
- Profit possibility
- Simulation