Industrial Symbiosis: Old Wine in Recycled Bottles? Some Perspective from the History of Economic and Geographical Thought

Pierre Desrochers and Samuli Leppälä
Additional contact information
Pierre Desrochers: Department of Geography, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, pierre.desrochers@utoronto.ca
Samuli Leppälä: Department of Economics, Turku School of Economics, Turku, Finland
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Samuli Mikael Leppälä

International Regional Science Review, 2010, vol. 33, issue 3, 338-361

Abstract: ‘‘Industrial symbiosis’’ (IS) is a central concept in the industrial ecology literature, which describes geographically proximate interfirm relationships involving the exchange of residual materials, water, and energy. Despite its obvious relevance to regional science, economic geography, and urban economics, the issue is only beginning to be addressed in these subdisciplines. This situation is paradoxical as both recovery linkages and the very concept of IS were discussed in some depth by numerous economists and geographers several decades ago. The goals of this article are to document this intellectual history, in the process gaining a better understanding of the phenomenon while shedding additional light on current controversies. In doing so, the authors further hope to restimulate economists, geographers, and regional scientists’ interest in the topic and to illustrate the long-standing importance of geographical co-location in facilitating the ‘‘internalization of externalities’’ of industrial operations.

Keywords: industrial symbiosis; industrial ecology; agglomeration economies; by-products; by-product linkages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0160017610375441 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:inrsre:v:33:y:2010:i:3:p:338-361

DOI: 10.1177/0160017610375441

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Regional Science Review
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().