Industrial Symbiosis System Research Articles

Water footprint assessment in an industrial symbiosis system based on environmental, economic, and social sustainability indices

Integrated water resource management requires a comprehensive assessment of all water uses, both direct and indirect, which can be captured by the Water Footprint (WF) concept, especially in Industrial Symbiosis (IS). IS creates links between different industries to reduce resource consumption. This article analyses the environmental, social, and economic sustainability aspects of the WF in an IS system. First, the inventories of these three aspects were carried out simultaneously with the WF inventory. Sustainability indices were presented based on the relative comparison of current WF and sustainably oriented WF (SOWF). SOWF in an IS system is defined as the situation with minimum total WF and is obtained by mathematical programming. The proposed framework was applied to an IS involving three industries in southeastern Iran: steel production, coal concentrate, and power generation. The blue WFs of these industries were calculated as 11.77 m3/ton of steel, 0.87 m3/ton of coal, and 8.31 m3/MWh of power. The sustainability indices revealed that the steel industry exhibited a more favorable environmental and social performance than other industries, while the power generation was economically superior with a higher cost ratio of current WF to SOWF. Subsequently, several sustainability-enhancing solutions were evaluated based on environmental, economic, and social criteria. Among these, solar energy usage, wastewater reuse, and recycling in iron ore processing emerged as effective strategies to enhance overall sustainability by reducing WFs and improving social criteria. Ultimately, the wastewater reuse option was given the highest priority.

Can industrial symbiosis policies be effective? Evidence from the nationwide industrial symbiosis system in China

Policies directly or indirectly influence the development of industrial symbiosis (IS). Quantitatively analyzing the effects of policies on IS at a national level is necessary, but current research has lagged. Focusing on the symbiotic system that includes the thermal power industry, cement industry, iron and steel industry, and social sector in China, this paper assesses the efficacy of policies on this nationwide IS system between 2015 and 2022. A policy influence framework is proposed, combining a cost-benefit analysis, agent-based model, and comparative analysis. Results show: (1) the symbiosis probability of the nationwide IS system experiences a fluctuating increase. The maximum increments of the symbiosis probability are 5%, and the resulting environmental benefits are equivalent to an emission reduction of 6.99 Mt from blast furnace slag, 20.97 Mt from iron mine tailing, 36.02 Mt from household waste, 25.01 Mt from steel slag, and 22.95 Mt from fly ash. However, the stimulation effects of policies vary across different subsystems. (2) Thermal power-chemical subsystems, thermal power-environmental protection subsystems, iron and steel-environmental protection subsystems, and social sector-cement subsystems need policy support in the future. (3) Approximately 50% of fields in this nationwide IS system is insensitive to current policies; policy approaches should shift from economic stimulation to symbiotic guidance. This paper fills the research gap by quantitatively studying the IS policy efficacy from a national level. The findings can contribute to the improvement of the Chinese IS policy system.

An integrated framework for industrial symbiosis performance evaluation in an energy-intensive industrial park in China.

Industrial symbiosis (IS) is an important tool to achieve green development for industrial parks. It is necessary to evaluate the IS performance for monitoring and managing the development of IS system. This study proposed an integrated framework to assess the IS performance based on the energy-intensive industrial park. Firstly, we established a Conceptual model of symbiotic coupling of three industries (iron and steel, thermal power, and cement). Then, the conceptual model was applied to extend the existing IS system in the energy-intensive industrial park. Finally, the IS performance of the extended IS system was evaluated. We verified this framework in Red flag cannel park (RFCP). The IS performance assessment in RFCP found that the existing IS activities produced significant multiple benefits and environmental impact reduction. For example, the existing IS activities produced 970.20 kt of low-carbon benefits, which accounted for 19% of the CO2 emissions in RFCP. However, after extending the existing symbiotic system combined with the conceptual model proposed in this study, we found that there still was a large amount of symbiotic potential (the reuse of waste heat, BF slag, gypsum) waiting to be developed in RFCP. In addition, we also found that the resilience of existing IS network in RFCP was weak and need to be further perfected. In general, in the further development and perfection of IS system in RFCP, the manager should not only focus on the development of IS activities among energy-intensive enterprises but also strive to foster more influential enterprises to enhance the anti-risk ability of IS network. The result indicates the integrated framework can provide support for the development and perfection of IS system in energy-intensive industrial parks.

Barriers to the adoption of integrated sustainable-green-lean-six sigma-agile manufacturing system (ISGLSAMS): a literature review

PurposeScarcity of resources, ecological imbalance, global warming, rising energy prices and the ever-changing need for variety have attracted the government and manufacturers for sustainable development of the industries. The integrated sustainable-green-lean-six sigma-agile manufacturing system (ISGLSAMS) provides a solid platform for meeting both the customers’ variety needs and business sustainability requirements. Many organizations opted for ISGLSAMS, but still due to various barriers organizations are not able to fully implement ISGLSAMS. The purpose of this paper is to identify the barriers to the ISGLSAMS, so that a more sustainable industrial manufacturing system and industrial symbiosis can be developed.Design/methodology/approachA literature review, from the Web of Science and Google Scholar database, has been carried out to identify the various barriers to the implementation of ISGLSAMS in the entire value chain. A total of 168 research papers have been reviewed for identifying the ISGLSAMS barriers.FindingsThis paper elaborates the concept of the ISGLSAMS, its attributes and various barriers and contributes to a better understanding and successful implementation of ISGLSAMS to meet business’ sustainability and market performance goals in the entire value chain. The paper also projects the future research framework and directions for the ISGLSAMS, integrated sustainable-green-lean-six sigma-agile (ISGLSA) product and ISGLSA supply and value chain.Practical implicationsThe study contributes to a better understanding of ISGLSAMS’ barriers. The government, stakeholders and policymakers may plan the policy, road map and strategies to overcome the ISGLSAMS’ barriers. In-depth knowledge of subclauses of ISGLSAMS’ barriers will help the practitioners to overcome the ISGLSAMS’ barriers strategically. By overcoming the ISGLSAMS barriers, a more sustainable 7 Rs based market focused manufacturing system can be designed. This will also increase the opportunities to enhance the industrial ecology, industrial symbiosis and better recovery of the product, process and supply chain residual value. This will reduce the waste to the ecosystem.Originality/valueThis work has been carried out in search of a more sustainable manufacturing system, i.e. ISGLSAMS (which is 7 Rs based, i.e. 6 Rs of sustainability with 7th R, reconfiguration) to meet the customer variety needs along with sustainability in the ever-changing customer market. This study adds value to the practitioners to identify and prioritize the ISGLSAMS’ industry-specific barriers and design the solution for the more sustainable development of (1) industries, (2) the industrial symbiosis system and (3) the ISGLSA product, process, system and supply value chain with minimum resource consumption and environmental impact. The research also contributes to the (a) ISGLSAMS (b) ISGLSA supply chain (c) reconfigurable, sustainable and modular products and (d) redesign, recovery and refurbishing of the product to increase the product life cycle.

Sharing carbon permits in industrial symbiosis: A game theory-based optimisation model

The emerging effects of climate change caused by the rise of carbon dioxide (CO2) and equivalent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the atmosphere have prompted policymakers to revise current emission reduction schemes. One of the schemes is a carbon permit scheme which places a restriction on the CO2 or equivalent GHG emissions to the atmosphere. However, limited literature explores the effectiveness of sharing carbon permits in an IS system to optimise and reduce waste emissions in a system. Therefore, this research presents an optimisation-based framework for plants in an industrial symbiosis (IS) system with a carbon permit scheme. The critical success factor for an IS system is the collaboration and synergistic possibilities between participating plants within geographical proximity. This paper takes a different approach from the typical physical resource sharing in IS. This research considers carbon permits as a shared resource between the plant operators. The sharing of carbon permits creates a cooperative environment between the plant operators in the IS system. Through this system, cooperative game theory (CGT) was used to determine the fair allocation of profit to each participating plant operator based on their marginal contribution in the IS system. A case study has been implemented for three process plants: palm oil mill (POM), palm oil-based biorefinery (POB) and combine heat power (CHP) plant that are operated under a carbon permit scheme. Results from the base case study illustrates that each plant operator receives an average of 12% higher profit when sharing their carbon permits relative to working individually under the carbon permit scheme. A further analysis has been conducted to investigate the framework′s economic feasibility at different emission cuts. With differing emission cuts, the results indicated plant operators obtained an increase in their profit margin by 25% when working in a coalition relative to working independently.

Towards biofuel generation III+: A sustainable industrial symbiosis design of co-producing algal and cellulosic biofuels

The emergence of environmental and sustainability regulations as well as the limited availability of fossil fuels have brought the notion of gradually substituting petroleum products with biofuels into the limelight. The commercialization and large-scale adoption of cellulosic biofuel (second-generation biofuel) and microalgae biofuel (third-generation biofuel) have been hampered by their poor economic performance. Although the production wastes of biofuel can be utilized as input materials to enhance resource utilization efficiency, environmental sustainability and economic viability in each generation, rarely existing research has been conducted on the integration between these two generations. To fill this research gap, a novel industrial symbiosis (IS) design for the co-production of second- and third-generation biofuels is proposed in this paper. The material flow, energy flow, cost performance, and environmental impact models are established considering the interactions of stakeholders in the IS system. Four scenarios, consisting of the baseline case without IS and three IS cases with different microalgae species, are comprehensively compared in terms of various economic and sustainability performance indicators. Compared to the baseline case, the results reveal that the synergies in the bioenergy IS system render an annual manufacturing cost reduction of >10% in all IS scenarios. It is also discovered that the symbiotic design can lead to a 36% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a 9.4% decrease in eutrophication potential (EP), and a 7.5% reduction in acidification potential (AP) when adopting the same species of microalgae. The synergies among the bioenergy IS system stakeholders are proved to be viable and beneficial to enhance the economic viability and environmental sustainability.

Modeling of Waste Flow in Industrial Symbiosis System at City-Region Level: A Case Study of Jinchang, China

Waste is increasingly used as a renewable resource. Industrial symbiosis is an innovative concept for more efficient use of waste streams within industrial complexes, with the aim of reducing the overall environmental impact of the complex. Industrial symbiosis plays a more important role in promoting green economic growth and building low-carbon cities. Based on the ecological theoretical framework, combined with Waste Flow Analysis (WFA), the material flow analysis (MFA) and production matrix methods were used as the core to construct the Industrial Symbiosis System Waste Flow Metabolism Analysis (ISSWFMA) model. In addition, taking the “Jinchang Model” as an example, a typical case selected by the National Development and Reform Commission of China’s regional circular economy development model, we conducted a refined quantitative study on the flow and metabolism of waste flow in the regional industrial symbiosis system at the City-Region level using the circulation degree index. The following conclusions were obtained from the study: The ISSWFMA model can better describe the flow and metabolism of waste streams in the industrial symbiosis system at the City-Region Level and can provide data and methods for storage management. As the internal industrial chain and the correlation between various departments continuously improved, the Circulation Index (CI) of solid waste, wastewater, and exhaust gas in the industrial symbiosis system of Jinchang City showed an overall increasing trend, the degree of recycling was continuously increasing, the industrial symbiosis ability was continuously enhanced, and the system structure was more complete. At the same time, based on the analysis of different wastes, the industrial symbiosis is developed at different stages; based on the analysis of solid wastes, the industrial symbiosis ability of Jinchang’s Industrial Symbiosis System has strengthened and accelerated the fastest from 2005 to 2010; based on the analysis of wastewater, the industrial symbiosis ability of the system strengthened slowly during the whole study period; and based on the analysis of exhaust gas, the industrial symbiosis ability of the system continued to strengthen rapidly during the whole study period. Finally, on the basis of further discussion on the selection of waste recycling paths, we proposed to give full play to the role of market mechanisms, and to build recycling areas and ecological areas by strengthening industrial symbiosis and its derived urban symbiosis to achieve the goals of natural resource conservation, ecological environment protection, and harmonious coexistence between human and nature.

Implementation of low carbon industrial symbiosis systems under financial constraint and environmental regulations: An evolutionary game approach

In the industrial symbiosis system, financial support has been proven to be key factors to motivate cooperation. However, current studies don’t explain the incentives to implement the low carbon industrial symbiosis. This paper considers a low carbon industrial symbiosis chain with one upstream manufacturer and one downstream manufacturer with the financial constraint. Under the environmental regulations, e.g., carbon tax and cap-and-trade, we investigate the financing preferences of the low carbon industrial symbiosis systems from a competing bank or trade credit by an evolutionary game model. It finds that external finance serves as a necessary financing way for manufacturers regardless of which manufacturer takes the responsibility of reducing carbon emission. Further, an appropriate combination of internal and external finance has a positive impact on the operation of a low-carbon industrial symbiosis system. The financing platform for manufacturers and cap-and-trade strategy promotes the implementation of carbon emission reduction responsibilities. Besides, we present a set of numerical analyses to investigate the sensitivity of inside and outside factors of the industrial symbiosis system, and we analyze the impacts of key parameters on the performance of low carbon industrial symbiosis system.

Intermediation dilemmas in facilitated industrial symbiosis

Industrial symbiosis (IS) is a key paradigm for achieving circular economy among industrial firms. Achieving new IS projects often requires outside facilitation, and intermediaries can help solidify and expand existing IS networks. While various intermediary roles have been identified in the literature, less attention has been paid to the potential challenges that intermediaries might encounter in their activities. Based on the case of the national symbiosis network FISS, the Finnish Industrial Symbiosis system, this study investigates the dilemmas faced when organizing IS networks. It identifies openness and value demonstration dilemmas, which hinder intermediary-firm relations. It also identifies collaborative intermediation processes among intermediaries in seeking to uncover value, ensuring community embedding of new networks and selective integration of intermediation activities. These processes can help overcome the intermediation dilemmas. The results on the collaborative intermediation and its development over time contribute to research on facilitated IS and on intermediaries in sustainability transitions. For policy-makers, the study pinpoints the need for collaborative intermediation where both national and regional intermediaries are involved to ensure both economies of scale and flexibility.

Requirements Engineering for an Industrial Symbiosis Tool for Industrial Parks Covering System Analysis, Transformation Simulation and Goal Setting

Industrial Symbiosis (IS) is a collaborative cross-sectoral approach to connect the resource supply and demand of various industries in order to optimize the resource use through exchange of materials, energy, water and human resources across different companies, while generating ecological, technical, social and economic benefits. One of the main goals of IS is the set-up of advanced circular/cascading systems, in which the energy and material flows are prolonged for multiple utilization within industrial systems in order to increase resource productivity and efficiency, while reducing the environmental load. Many Information Communication Technology (ICT) tools have been developed to facilitate IS, but they predominantly focus on the as-is analysis of the IS system, and do not consider the development of a common desired target vision or corresponding possible future scenarios as well as conceivable transformation paths from the actual to the defined (sustainability) target state. This gap shall be addressed in this paper, presenting the software requirements engineering results for a holistic IT-supported IS tool covering system analysis, transformation simulation and goal-setting. This new approach goes beyond system analysis and includes the use of expert systems, system dynamics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques, which turn the IT-supported IS tool to be developed into a comprehensive and holistic instrument with which future scenarios and transformation paths can be simulated.

Quantitative assessment of energy conservation and emission reduction effects of nationwide industrial symbiosis in China

Studies on quantifying the energy conservation and emission reduction (ECER) effects of industrial symbiosis are mostly confined to micro-level industrial parks or regions, and few are on national level. Focusing on the symbiosis system formed by the iron and steel industry, the thermal power industry, the cement industry, and the social sector in China, this article aims to clarify the contribution of this nationwide industrial symbiosis system to China's total industrial ECER potential and to identify optimal symbiotic technologies that should be emphasized on from 2020 to 2030. By combining traditional bottom-up model and lifecycle material metabolism theory, this article simulates the technology structure of this symbiosis system. By clarifying the ECER mechanisms of different types of symbiotic technologies, this article evaluates the ECER effect of each symbiotic technology as well as the performance of the overall symbiosis system. The results show that: (1) this nationwide industrial symbiosis system can save 35.7 million tons of coal equivalent, and reduce 189 kt of SO2 emissions, 139 kt of NOx emissions, and 64 kt of PM emissions. These ECER effects contribute to 18–43% of China's national industrial ECER targets, which are larger than the potential of promoting energy efficiency technologies and end-of-pipe technologies in each single industry; (2) reutilizing solid wastes from the thermal power industry and the social sector as cementitious materials, as well as recovering iron and zinc from metallurgical dust are key symbiotic fields between 2020 and 2030. Three types of differentiated technology promotion suggestions are put forward.

Tracking Sustainability Targets with Quantitative Indicator Systems for Performance Measurement of Industrial Symbiosis in Industrial Parks

Industrial Symbiosis (IS) is a systematic and collective (business) approach to optimizing the use of materials and energy among cross-sectoral industries in order to initiate and exhaust extended cascading systems; it is associated with (synergistic) environmental, technical, social, and economic benefits. For monitoring and controlling the development and progress of an IS system, an indicator system must be set up to standardize and assess the IS (sustainability) performance. This study aims to present a quantitative indicator system to enable the tracking of set sustainability targets of an IS system in Industrial Parks (IPs) for goal-directed IS management. The presented guiding framework encourages IP members in IS systems to set sustainability objectives and to evaluate and track their performance over time with a quantitative indicator system. In particular, established and (partly) internationally standardized methods—such as Material Flow Analysis (MFA), Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA), Social Network Analysis (SNA), and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)—are used in order to place the indicator system on a solid and robust foundation and to adequately meet the multi-faceted sustainability perspectives in the form of a combinatorial application for deriving suitable quantitative indicators for all three (environmental, economic, social) dimensions of sustainability. The indicator system, once embedded in an Information Technology (IT)-supported IS tool, contributes crucially to the technology-enabled environment of IS systems, driving sustainability trajectories.

Many-objective optimization of technology implementation in the industrial symbiosis system based on a modified NSGA-III

Industrial symbiosis is a promising approach for energy conservation and emission reduction in the global industrial sector. The objective of this research is to optimize technology implementation within the industrial symbiosis system to achieve enhanced environmental and economic performance. The case study in this research has five objectives, making this a many-objective optimization problem (MaOP). MaOPs are a type of multi-objective optimization problems (MOPs), with the key difference being that MaOPs have four or more optimization objectives . While traditional intelligent algorithms are suitable for solving MOPs with no more than three objectives, they encounter serious difficulties when applied to MaOPs (high risk of falling into a local optimum, high computational complexity in algorithm performance evaluation, and difficulty in visualizing and analyzing high-dimensional optimal solutions). To fill this gap, this article establishes a novel methodological framework for solving many-objective environmental management problems. The framework includes a modified NSGA-III model, the Hypervolume by Slicing Objectives algorithm, the Heatmap method, and the fitted curve method. This framework provides model optimization, algorithm performance evaluation, results visualization, and decision-making analysis capabilities for optimizing technology implementation within the industrial symbiosis system. The study tests the effectiveness and reliability of this methodology. The result shows that industrial symbiosis can greatly reduce energy consumption, pollutant emissions , and economic costs in the industrial sector. Optimal technologies for effective industrial symbiosis in China from 2020 to 2030 are identified. • A cost effective & environmental friendly industrial symbiosis system is established. • A methodological framework is built to solve many-objective optimization problems. • Environmental & economic performance of nationwide industrial symbiosis is evaluated. • Optimal symbiotic technologies for effective industrial symbiosis are identified.

Optimal control and cooperative game theory based analysis of a by-product synergy system

In this paper, we propose a framework to analyse the setting up of an industrial symbiosis system. The establishment of such a system entails implementation of expensive technologies by the companies so as to convert wastes into energy and other mutually beneficial materials. Much of the literature on modeling industrial symbiosis do not consider this important aspect of high conversion costs. Further, such a cooperative effort will be sustainable only if the high cost of implementing technologies is compensated by sharing of the benefits in a fair and satisfactory manner. Towards this end, first at a general level, we addres the issue of the optimal design of an industrial symbiosis network of companies in a given region. The materials processing rates depend on the choice of the new technology. We first propose an optimal control problem to determine the best choice of technology for the companies. Then, we recommend the nucleolus-based cooperative game theory approach to determine the best share of the benefits among the participating companies as this method minimizes the unhappiness of the members. A hypothetical numerical example of three companies is provided to illustrate the model. Each company has a choice of 3 technology options. The planning horizon is assumed to be 5 years. The numerical example brings out clearly the benefit of cooperation. The benefit of by-product synergy is that companies 1, 2 and 3 can realize an increase in their NPVs by 44%, 33% and 21% respectively. The nucleolus based sharing of NPVs guarantees the acceptance by companies of the distribution of the additional profits.

Industrial Symbiosis Systems: Promoting Carbon Emission Reduction Activities.

The carbon emission problem in China needs to be solved urgently. Industrial symbiosis, as an effective means to improve resource efficiency, can better alleviate the carbon emission problem. Under such a circumstance, this paper regards an industrial symbiosis system as a collection of producers, consumers and decomposers, and analyzes the strategic selections and behavioral characteristics of their carbon emission reduction activities through a tripartite evolutionary game model, and then the effects of related parameters on the evolutionary stable strategies of stakeholders are discussed. The results demonstrate that: (1) the regular return and the rate of return determine the ability of stakeholders to undertake carbon reduction activities; (2) the initial willingness of stakeholders to participate will affect the evolutionary speed of the strategies; (3) a high opportunity cost reduces the inertia of stakeholders to carry out carbon emission reductions; (4) producers, consumers and decomposers can avoid “free rides” by signing agreements or adopting punitive measures.

Championing processes and the emergence of industrial symbiosis

ABSTRACTIndustrial symbiosis is an important concept for regional development in which industrial organizations seek to use one another's outputs and inputs, reduce waste and achieve economic benefits. Though the technical details of this phenomenon are well known, the roles of key individuals and, particularly, their championing processes remain unclear. This paper includes a pre-study of a national industrial symbiosis system, followed by an in-depth case study of a regional industrial symbiosis related to heat reuse. The findings reveal novel implications about how champions facilitate collaboration among regional organizations and other stakeholders, leading to the emergence of industrial symbiosis.

Evolution model with time lag effects for the coal industrial symbiosis system: A case study of Ordos, China

Abstract Industrial metabolism and symbiotic coupling has become the base paradigm of green, low-carbon development of coal mining. In the coal industrial symbiosis system (CISS), stability is increasingly fragile because of its unique industrial links and growth environment. Referring to the classic Lotka-Volterra population ecology model, and synthesizing the periodicity and time lag effects of industrial development, two entirely novel and more generalized CISS evolution models with time lag effects in the competitive and reciprocal scenarios are constructed respectively. Moreover, the conditions of CISS stability are proven and discussed through mathematical analysis. Simulation and theorem validation were carried out by taking the largest Chinese coal city, Ordos, as the research object. The main results are as follows. First, the time lag effect is an important factor leading to CISS instability. The shorter the time lag within the CISS, the better the collaboration between industries, and the easier it is that the CISS will achieve a stable ecological balance. Second, when the power of competition dominates, the development of industries within CISS will be inhibited; when the power of cooperation dominates, the evolution of CISS will toward a positive direction. Third, a certain degree of self-inhibition will contribute to the stable development of the industrial symbiosis system. At last, the social service industry not only can boost the industrial diversity within CISS, but also can promote the co-evolution of original and exogenous industries, which plays a positive role in the healthy and stable development of CISS.

The vulnerability of industrial symbiosis: A case study of Qijiang Industrial Park, China

China is promoting the National Demonstration Eco-Industrial Park Program through the establishment of national eco-industrial parks (EIPs) founded on the concept of industrial symbiosis (IS). However, IS networks can be vulnerable to unanticipated perturbations such as sudden collapse/drop-out of an enterprise or the variations in waste quality, which constrain the sustainable development of EIPs. In such cases, we used Qijiang Industrial Park in Chongqing, China, as the case to construct a material and energy exchange network, and the evaluation indicator of vulnerability is put forward based on traditional topological metrics such as node/edge betweenness and global efficiency. We then conducted simulation experiments including single node failure and edge failure considering cascading failure to measure each enterprise’s and energy/material flow’s destructive effect on the entire network. The result imply that the statuses of enterprise and energy/material vary considerably. Enterprises located in further upstream have relatively large influence in general, and the upstream exchange of energy/material influence the IS system to a large extent. Additionally, synergetic exchanges with larger amount have larger influence on the IS system. Based on our findings, we recommended design and management strategies, such as enterprises adopting a more flexible sourcing and production strategy for various wastes/by-products, increasing the connectivity of EIP, and promoting informationization, to lower the vulnerability of IS system.

Stability Analysis of Symbiotic Bioenergy Parks

In this work, a novel stability analysis for symbiotic bioenergy park is introduced. The concept of incremental investment return (IIR) analysis is adapted to determine the distribution of the savings associated with the additional investment required for implementation of industrial symbiosis (IS) scheme. Deviation from the ideal status of IS system can be obtained by determining the asymmetric distribution coefficient of each processing plant. An IS system is stable for as long as no partner bears a disproportionate share of additional investment costs relative to benefits gained from cooperation. To ensure a stable IS system, the asymmetric distribution coefficient must be bounded within maximum and minimum limits that can be determined based on the individual plants’ requirements or company policies. In case where the asymmetric distribution coefficient of one of the processing plants falls outside of the predefined limits, the symbiotic bioenergy park is not stable, and the proposed IS scheme cannot be implemented. A palm-based symbiotic bioenergy park case study is solved to illustrate the proposed approach.

A review of industrial symbiosis research: theory and methodology

The theory, methodologies, and case studies in the field of industrial symbiosis have been developing for nearly 30 years. In this paper, we trace the development history of industrial symbiosis, and review its current theoretical and methodological bases, as well as trends in current research. Based on the research gaps that we identify, we provide suggestions to guide the future development of this approach to permit more comprehensive analyses. Our theoretical review includes key definitions, a classification system, and a description of the formation and development mechanisms. We discuss methodological studies from the perspective of individual industrial metabolic processes and network analysis. Analyzing specific metabolic processes can help to characterize the exchanges of materials and energy, and to reveal the ecological performance and economic benefits of the symbiosis. Network analysis methods are increasingly being used to analyze both the structural and functional characteristics of a system. Our suggestions for future research focus on three aspects: how to quantitatively classify industrial symbiosis systems, monitor the dynamics of a developing industrial symbiosis system, and analyze its internal attributes more deeply.