Hubs for Circularity: Geo-Based Industrial Clustering towards Urban Symbiosis in Europe

Francisco Mendez Alva,Rob De Boever,Greet Van Eetvelde

doi:10.3390/su132413906

Abstract

Since the Green Deal, ambitious climate and resource neutrality goals have been set in Europe. Here, process industries hold a unique position due to their energy and material transformation capabilities. They are encouraged to develop cross-sectorial hubs for achieving not only climate ambition, but also joining a circular economy through urban–industrial symbiosis with both business and community stakeholders. This research proposes a data-based approach to identify potential hub locations by means of cluster analysis. A total of three different algorithms are compared on a set of location and pollution data of European industrial facilities: K-means, hierarchical agglomerative and density-based spatial clustering. The DBSCAN algorithm gave the best indication of potential locations for hubs because of its capacity to tune the main parameters. It evidenced that predominately west European countries have a high potential for identifying hubs for circularity (H4Cs) due to their industrial density. In Eastern Europe, the industrial landscape is more scattered, suggesting that additional incentives might be needed to develop H4Cs. Furthermore, industrial activities such as the production of aluminium, cement, lime, plaster, or electricity are observed to have a relatively lower tendency to cluster compared with the petrochemical sector. Finally, further lines of research to identify and develop industrial H4Cs are suggested.

Highlights

The collected data are analysed according to each methodology, comparing the clustering algorithms and assessing the type of clusters and insights found per selected algorithm
To test the suitability of the database, we evaluated the uniformity of the sites in Europe
This paper provides a first attempt at identifying locations for hubs based on urban–industrial symbiosis centred around energy-intensive industries

Summary

Introduction

The European Union sees both as key pillars in the ambitious new Green Deal presented at the end of 2019 [2], which aims at making Europe climate neutral by 2050 To make this transition a reality, the Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) [3] was launched in March 2020, which outlines the steps needed to achieve the goals of a fully circular economy. Energy, materials, services, infrastructure and information are shared with the aim of achieving climate and resource neutrality [4] Such a self-sustaining economic ecosystem involves a manifold of regional stakeholders from industry, civil society, local authorities, and RTOs to deploy full-scale urban–industrial symbiosis (UIS) and circular economics [4]

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Methods

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Discussion

Conclusion