CHALLENGE: OPENC - Applying Industrial Symbiosis at the Community Scale

OpenC is a new systems-level concept for applying industrial symbiosis at the community scale and driven by citizens and small businesses. We are launching OpenC Cape Town and OpenC Jozi (Johannesburg) this year. This is an open initiative so other cities that are interested can join as well. We haven’t create an OpenC logo yet but that will be done later this year.

We will use GIS and maps of the city at various scales to examine material and energy flows and apply urban metabolism to optimize flows. Data visualization and GIS programmers encouraged to come out. We will compile a database of organizations and their material and energy flows, working with other industrial symbiosis organizations and get citizens to start thinking in terms of flows.

In Cape Town we are going to start with the vibrant community of Woodstock. We will collectively map out all the interesting waste streams and see what opportunities there are to reuse or repurpose them. Woodstock is undergoing gentrification and any new business opportunities are also opportuntiies for compensating the people displaced by this gentrification. This is not justifying the gentrification but alleviating some of the pain caused by it.

This will be an ongoing project.
OSCEDays will explore community-scale industrial symbiosis on June 10.

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