North Sea synergies

A new organisation has been set up to bring together businesses with shared objectives and overlapping technical capabilities around the North Sea, in search of more sustainable development strategies. The Business Council for Sustainable Development - North Sea Region (BCSD - NSR), launched in London in November, begins life as a pooling of practical projects among a score or so of British, Norwegian and Finnish companies, plus some universities and regional authorities. Its first focus will be on achieving some ‘by-product synergies’ between members, in which one company’s waste stream can be an input for another’s operations. At Trondheim in Norway, for example, a fish farming company is already getting waste heat channelled to it by a North Sea methanol plant, and thereby gaining from having warmer seawater temperatures. It is estimated that there may be scope for over 100 such by-product synergy projects in the north-east of England alone.

BCSD - NSR is a regional affiliate of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and its first chair is Thomas Knudson of Conoco Europe.

BCSD - NSR, 01724 281558; www.bcsd-nsr.co.uk

18 October 2001