The dynamics of industrial symbiosis: a proposal for a conceptual framework based upon a comprehensive literature review
Introduction
While it has become fashionable to talk about the globalization of economic activities and the corresponding rise in importance of the space of flows, such activities require a specific place where they are performed (Castells, 1996). Within the field of industrial ecology, this space of place has been coined industrial symbiosis. Chertow has defined industrial symbiosis as “engaging traditionally separate industries in a collective approach to competitive advantage involving physical exchange of materials, energy, water, and by-products. The keys to industrial symbiosis are collaboration and the synergistic possibilities offered by geographic proximity” (Chertow, 2007: 12). Removing the intentionality from this definition, industrial symbiosis concerns the material and energy flows and transformations that are generated by economic actors within a geographically bound system. Chertow’s definition points to the fact that in several countries, firms, NGOs and governmental agencies have sought to make such flows and transformations more sustainable (for overviews see Mouzakitis et al., 2003, Sakr et al., 2009). The aim of this article is to provide a missing link in the literature: an adequate theoretical underpinning of the process through which industrial symbiosis comes about. In our view, industrial symbiosis can be usefully conceptualized as a process rather than a state of affairs. This also provides a basis for the longitudinal analysis of industrial symbiosis; a necessary quality given the finding that it takes years to develop.
We start with a characterisation of the existing literature on industrial symbiosis, assessing the concepts and theoretical insights that have been proposed to aid understanding of this phenomenon (Section 2). We then propose our theoretical framework, which addresses two levels of analysis: the societal level and the level of regionally bounded clusters of firms (Section 3). In Section 4 we then take another look at the literature to see the extent to which evidence is available that corroborates the relevance of our framework. We conclude with an agenda for future research.
Section snippets
Conceptual approaches in the literature
For our literature research we have used the ISI Web of Science database and searched for publications that listed ‘industrial symbiosis’, ‘eco-industrial park’, or the combination of ‘industrial ecology’ and ‘regional’ as a topic. From the resulting 347 items we removed all entries that dealt with topics unrelated to material and energy flows among firms in regional industrial systems. We also excluded conference proceedings for reasons of accessibility. This procedure resulted in a list of
Understanding the dynamics of industrial symbiosis
In our view, industrial symbiosis is best conceptualized as a process. The definition of Chertow, refers to ‘traditionally separate’ industries, indicating the move towards increased connectiveness in terms of material, energy, and information flows. Also, the work that analyses empirical evidence continuously stresses the factors that hinder or stimulate the process through which industrial symbiosis comes about. Thus, we aim to provide a theoretical basis for understanding the dynamics
Empirical support for our framework
In many studies empirical evidence of the mechanisms described above are touched upon. Policy programs from governmental agencies are usually referred to as a major conditioning factor. In China the influence of policies is probably most evident as a coercive mechanism. The Chinese policy on circular economy is one of the central factors of influence on Chinese industrial symbiosis development (Geng and Doberstein, 2008, Geng et al., 2008, Geng et al., 2009, Yuan et al., 2006). In the United
Research agenda
We find that our conceptual framework connects well to the existing conceptual and empirical literature on industrial symbiosis. In addition, it provides a way to further develop the field by building on theoretical insights that help to understand the dynamics through which regional industrial systems change their connectiveness and consequently their ecological impact. The framework specifies basic relationships between variables. Further research is required to define variables more
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