Industrial Symbiosis Implementation Potential—An Applied Assessment Tool for Companies

João Azevedo, Inês Ferreira, Rui Dias, Cristina Ascenço, Bruno Magalhães, Juan Henriques, Muriel Iten and Fernando Cunha
Additional contact information
João Azevedo: Low Carbon & Resource Efficiency, R&Di, Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade, 4415-491 Grijó, Portugal
Inês Ferreira: Low Carbon & Resource Efficiency, R&Di, Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade, 4415-491 Grijó, Portugal
Rui Dias: Low Carbon & Resource Efficiency, R&Di, Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade, 4415-491 Grijó, Portugal
Cristina Ascenço: Programs and Business Incubation, R&Di, Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade, 2740-120 Oeiras, Portugal
Bruno Magalhães: Low Carbon & Resource Efficiency, R&Di, Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade, 2740-120 Oeiras, Portugal
Juan Henriques: Low Carbon & Resource Efficiency, R&Di, Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade, 4415-491 Grijó, Portugal
Muriel Iten: Low Carbon & Resource Efficiency, R&Di, Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade, 4415-491 Grijó, Portugal
Fernando Cunha: Escola Superior de Tecnologia de Setúbal—Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal, 2910-761 Setúbal, Portugal

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: A successful and broad implementation of industrial symbiosis (IS) initiatives is highly related to stakeholder’s involvement and technical considerations on its process’ development. This paper presents a mixed research study (quantitative and qualitative) focusing on the development of a dedicated tool based on sequential modules’ that support companies in the assessment of their potential to develop and implement IS scenarios. The first module considers the identification and characterization of the economic activity of the company to support an IS contextualization analysis. The second module provides the evaluation of the company’s current state, allowing key intervention areas to be defined. The third module focuses on the assessment of the potential scenarios for synergies implementation based on an economic benefit comparison of different valorization scenarios regarding the available surplus or waste. Complementarily, a SWOT analysis for the identification of the internal strengths and weaknesses, the external opportunities and threats associated with the IS process implementation is presented. The final output compiles qualitative and quantitative results regarding each module. The presented tool is currently under validation at industrial case studies. The preliminary results show the high applicability of the proposed tool in order to support decision making processes on surpluses valorization scenarios selection.

Keywords: industrial symbiosis; current state assessment; implementation potential; waste valorization; decision support tool (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/3/1420/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/3/1420/ (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:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:3:p:1420-:d:489509

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().