Social Network Relationships between Biomass Industry Stakeholders in the Agricultural Waste Power Generation Industry—A Case of Northern Jiangsu, China

Jingan Zhu, Huaxing Lin, Xinyu Yang, Xiaohui Yang, Ping Jiang and Tomas Marin Del Valle
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Jingan Zhu: Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Huaxing Lin: Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Xinyu Yang: Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Xiaohui Yang: Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Ping Jiang: Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Tomas Marin Del Valle: Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: This study aimed to explore the impact of the interaction between stakeholders in the sustainable development of the biomass industry and to reveal network issues relating to material flow and information flow under the current biomass energy development model. This study focused on the agriculture and forestry waste power generation industry. Taking the biomass industry in Nanjing, Suqian, and Yancheng as examples, the study selected six stakeholder groups involved in the industry and conducted field investigations by using semi-open interviews and questionnaires. The research mainly applied social network analysis methods, combined with UCINET software, to draw a network diagram of the stakeholder relationships and to quantitatively analyze stakeholder centrality and overall network density. The results revealed that (1) the biomass enterprises had the highest centrality in the overall network, which played a vital role in the construction of the overall network; (2) the farmers were positioned at the outer fringes of the industrial social network and their information acquisition capabilities and degree of control over the network were the lowest; and (3) the overall network density was low, which showed that the connections between stakeholders were not close enough to support the circulation of material and information in the overall network.

Keywords: biomass; agriculture and forestry waste power generation industry; social network; stakeholders; Jiangsu Province (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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