Abstract :
Industrial ecology is research field dedicated to addressing the sustainability concerns linked to industrial systems. According to industrial ecology manufacture systems is part of the biosphere. The environmental performance of industry can be improved by applying models of the biophysical environment to industrial production. Business activity should be transformed into a more integrated model: an industrial ecosystem. In such a system the consumption of energy and materials is optimized, waste generation is minimized and the effluents of one process serve as the raw material for another process. Industrial ecology is a systemic, comprehensive, integrated view of all the components of an economics and their relations with the biosphere. Since the emergence of industrial ecology in the 1960s and its take-off during the 1990s, much progress in theory, policy and practice has been achieved. Industrial ecology has made a major contribution to the tools of corporate environmental management over the last ten years. However, the most of that contribution has been achieved at the level of products and individual companies. Eco-industrial development is a subset of sustainable development and initiatives to creating eco-industrial systems are recently increasing. This paper presents current situation of Klaipeda city according to industrial ecological principles: industrial metabolism, optimisation of manufacture´s material and energy flows, balance inputs and outputs with natural ecosystems and etc. There are highlighted current relations between harbour and other companies in the city and interaction with environment. This paper offers possible new industrial metabolism relations, exchange of materials and energy, new interactions with environmentally sound means considering the harbour and other city companies influence to Baltic Sea pollution. The article analyses the main stimulus and obstacles for implementation of industrial ecology concept for sustainable Klaipeda city development.
