Shanxi’s steel giant, Taiyuan Iron and Steel (Group) Co became a pilot enterprise of industrial ecological design, on the decision of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, according to the province’s State-owned assets supervision and administration commission on July 7.

During the pilot period, Taiyuan Iron and Steel Group will invest 800 million yuan ($128.88 million) for research and development of ecological products and green industrial chain. It will work for an entire circular industrial chain to get full use of solid waste and cyclic utlization of wastewater, and the ecological design system will be established in the enterprise.

Early in 2013, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Environmental Protection jointly proposed guidance on ecological design, which declared that ecological design is significant to cut resource consumption and pollution during a product’s life cycle.

An initiative to establish pilots for ecological design was proposed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology the following year. 41 enterprises from eight sectors, including steel, construction materials and electronic and electrical products, stood out as pilots. Taiyuan Iron and Steel Group is the only one located in Shanxi.