Drivers and barriers for industrial symbiosis: the case of Mo Industrial Park

Abstract

The circular economy (CE) – the concept of closing material and energy loops to extract their utilization – has started gaining momentum as a solution to address sustainable development. Replacing a linear model of production, where goods are manufactured from raw materials, used and disposed of (Saavedra et al. 2018), a circular system maintains the value of resources, products and materials in the economy as long as possible (Merli et al. 2018). CE can be defined as “an economy constructed from societal production-consumption systems that maximize the service produced from the linear nature-society-nature material and energy throughput flow” (Korhonen et al. 2018, p. 39). Several authors argue that the CE transition needs to be interpreted at three levels (e.g. Fang et al. 2007; Jackson et al. 2014; Sakr et al. 2011): changes in social and economic dynamics at a macro level; implementation of circular processes such as product design and consumption at the micro level; and industrial symbiosis between firms at a meso level (Merli et al. 2018). Adapting the meso level, this chapter explores a key strategy for CE, namely, the industrial symbiosis between actors in an industrial park, where the aim is to create physical links between actors through the exchange of energy, materials, water and by-products (Hardy and Graedel 2002; Prosman et al. 2017). Industrial symbiosis is found to be more sustainable than most other manufacturing concepts because it comprises more innovation targets and mechanisms (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017; OECD 2009). This chapter joins this debate of change (Damanpour 1991) as an important attribute of innovation for industrial symbiosis. The change towards industrial symbiosis (IS) is connected to a set of barriers and drivers, as these factors require cooperation between actors, capital and intellectual input. Numerous drivers and barriers of IS are recognized in the literature and mainly capture technical aspects, such as water treatment, optimization models and product flows (Bacudio et al. 2016). This chapter responds to calls to examine IS from a social science point of view (Lindkvist and Baumann 2014) and for longitudinal case studies on the development of drivers and barriers in IS (Zhu and Ruth 2014). Hence, we address the following research question: How have the drivers and barriers to IS developed in Mo Industrial Park over a decade? We start with a theoretical presentation of the drivers and barriers to innovation of IS before we present the case of the Mo Industrial Park and the methods. Next, the findings of the drivers and barriers to IS development are discussed in relation to the literature.