Environmental Knowledge Management - Recent Advances and Issues in Environmental Science - page 59

Figure 7 presents the percentage of sludge recycled at CSC. The recycling of sludge
has improved over the years and the goal of 100% of recycling was achieved in 2000.
Financial Performance
The strategy of CSC eco-industrial park is not only to maximize energy efficiency and
financial performance, but also reduce the environmental burden. Steam, N 2 , O 2, and
Ar are generated during the steel making process and are sold to external plants such
as China Petrochemical Development Corporation at KHH, Tang Eng Stainless Steel
Plant, China Steel Chemical Corporation, etc. The financial gain from sold energy is
shown in Figure 8 from which it can be seen that profit has increased from 4.12 million
USD in 1994 to 33.66 million USD in 2006.
In addition to the increase in revenue gained from the energy sold to nearby plants,
CSC also reduces its costs by increasing the pulverized coal injection (PCI) rate and
reducing the fuel rate which can save 6.59 million USD each year. Also, the rain re-
cycling system can collect 150,000 tons of water which can save around 66,000 and
USD each year; the waste heat recovery system can save 72.46 million USD each year
and the acid regeneration plant (ARP) will reduce the cost of acid purchasing by 3.95
million USD. Hence, to eliminate energy waste and increase fi nancial performance,
CSC also continuously improves its management strategies and technology in order to
improve the overall energy effi ciency.
Application of EKM in Strategy Planning and Performance Improvement
The change in the organizational structure of CSC has enabled the EPD to concen-
trate on strategy and planning related to environmental issues, integration of natural
resources and prevention of pollution in production. Strong support from executives
drives the success of CSC in EKM and environmental performance. In addition, man-
agers usually apply the newest techniques to reduce pollution due to the environmen-
tal concerns and social responsibility. The organizational change of CSC was also
significant in establishing dynamic strategy planning, executing EKM and achieving
continuous environmental improvement through EKM activities. The implementation
of CSC environmental protection strategy enables engineers to prevent problems and
prepare possible solutions in advance. According to the manager of environmental
protection, CSC used to invest in new mills without considering the environmental
loading until problems began to appear. To avoid the same pollution problems, the
EPD integrates all the related departments and production resources, including up-
stream, downstream, cross departments, the EMS, and so forth to reduce the total
environmental loading and pollution. The main concept is to implement pollution pre-
vention and core process management strategies in advance instead of having to find a
solution to the pollution problem. Using an iterative four step problem solving process,
the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Action), the EPD collects related production data and de-
velops evaluation forms for pre-evaluation, in process-evaluation and post-evaluation
during new plant construction. The EKM system enables the EPD to develop new
technical knowledge through KC, estimate the results from the accumulated experi-
ence and utilize pollution prevention technologies in advance.