WISP Celebrates its successful pilot year!

The Western Cape Industrial Symbiosis Programme (WISP) is a free facilitation service which assists companies to gain value to under-utilised resources. The programme has completed its pilot year, demonstrating that industrial symbiosis has great potential for businesses in the Western Cape. 

The WISP programme supports businesses with unused or residual resources (materials, energy, water, assets, logistics, land and expertise) to find links or “synergies” with other companies that may be able to use these resources. This results in mutual economic, social and environmental benefits for all businesses involved.

Since the programme’s commencement in April 2013, the WISP team has been working to grow a network of 108 diverse organisations across a variety of sectors and over 1,200 potential synergies have been identified within the network. Since the last workshop in October 2013, the WISP team has been working to support its member businesses to realise these synergies. In May 2014, eleven synergies had been completed with the following estimated outcomes:

The success that WISP has achieved, has shown that there is not only great potential for industrial symbiosis in the Western Cape, but that there are also opportunities in the rest of South Africa. For this reason, WISP is committed to supporting the development of a national industrial symbiosis programme in South Africa, working in collaboration with the National Cleaner Production Centre and Trade and Investment KwaZulu Natal. Scoping activities for industrial symbiosis will be conducted in Gauteng this year and a pilot programme is anticipated to start in KwaZulu Natal in May.

In 2014 WISP will continue to develop the potential synergies identified in 2013, but the team will also work to further unlock the Greater Cape Town region by engaging more companies in the area. WISP also plans to grow and diversify the network to include the West Coast and Cape Winelands. Two workshops are planned for 2014, currently set for August and October, with the possibility of a third in February 2015.

If you would like to become part of the network and kept up-to-date with our events, contact Sarah O’Carroll or Joshua Wallace on 021 811 0250 or wisp@green-cape.co.za. You can also visit GreenCape’s website www.green-cape.co.za and follow us on Twitter WISP_GreenCape to find out more about the programme.