How policies influence the implementation of industrial symbiosis: a comparison between UK and China

Abstract

In recent years, industrial symbiosis (IS) has been the subject of policy interest both in the UK and China, as a means of pursuing sustainable development that can offer new opportunities to improve economic growth and local regeneration without degrading the environment. Although IS is potentially a powerful sustainable business concept for protecting the environment and generating significant revenues, the uptake of IS is less extensive than it could be. Governmental intervention, as manifested through policies, could be influential in shaping IS development. This paper explores policy challenges in implementing IS by matching policies with the challenges to IS practice and figuring out how policies can help overcome these challenges and what are the remaining difficulties to policy-making for IS. The findings suggest that the UK follows a 'bottom-up' dominated approach whereas China follows a 'top-down' dominated approach. It is concluded that, in the UK and China, there are commonalities in policy challenges to IS implementation, and also different difficulties to policy-making in terms of building an IS enabling context in each country.