Shortcomings of Transforming a Local Circular Economy System through Industrial Symbiosis: A Case Study in Spanish SMEs.

Defining the circular economy (CE) as a material and energy model coincides with the definition given by multiple authors in which Industrial Symbiosis (IS) has been deemed as a foundational strategy to support the implementation of the CE. The consumption of secondary materials is essential to achieve a successful transformation from a linear economy to a CE focused on IS practices. In this scenario, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a major role as stakeholders in developing CE systems as it is not possible to create this model with each company working in isolation. However, there is a lack of empirical studies on the role played by relevant local stakeholders such as individual firms interacting in the development of a local CE system. This study aimed to study the challenges that SMEs face in developing a CE system. A case study is selected as a research strategy using a mixed-method approach: a sequential quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews) data collection techniques were employed for this research. It was observed that an absence of inter-organisational collaboration and a misunderstanding of the roles played by SMEs may impede the implementation of a local CE system level

Industrial Symbiosis in Norwegian Industrial Clusters : A Qualitative Study of Drivers and Barriers Faced by Norwegian Industrial Clusters when Initiating and Implementing Industrial Symbiosis Practices

We are currently facing a global economy in need of becoming more circular and it is necessary for the industry to be a part of this transition. To accomplish this, the industry needs to engage in cross-industrial collaboration through the exchange of excess resources, also recognized as industrial symbiosis. While international research on industrial symbiosis is extensive, limited studies have been conducted on this topic within a Norwegian context specifically. In this master’s thesis, we will therefore investigate how industrial symbiosis practices can be successfully initiated and implemented in Norwegian industrial clusters. For this thesis, we have chosen an exploratory, qualitative approach to study eleven Norwegian industrial clusters engaging in industrial symbiosis. We have conducted interviews with representatives from the cluster management organizations to gain valuable insight into the perspectives on initiating and implementing industrial symbiosis. The thesis yields several findings, primarily related to four aspects. Firstly, we have identified the main drivers for the initiation of industrial symbiosis, both internal: economic benefits and environmental responsibility, and external: stakeholder pressure on environmental production practices and upcoming international regulations. Secondly, we have identified ten barriers that Norwegian industrial clusters might face in their implementation of industrial symbiosis, related to technical, organizational, social, economic, and institutional dimensions. Subsequently, we found that these barriers might be overcome through seven suggested solutions: fostering pride and community; establishing a shared vision, strategy, and goals; having a third-party to identify and initiate industrial symbiosis; having a third-party to facilitate negotiations; learning about industrial symbiosis by engaging with other clusters; collaborating with other stakeholders; and influencing policymakers. Furthermore, we related these potential solutions to four identified overarching goals, namely: building a collaborative culture, establishing trust, cultivating knowledge of industrial symbiosis, and finding feasible solutions. Finally, we have explored the significance of the key stakeholders of industrial symbiosis activities, which we have identified as significant companies and individuals, cluster facilitators, research institutions, and governmental actors. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to filling the addressed research gap and to serve as a tool for Norwegian clusters that want to initiate or are in the process of implementing industrial symbiosis practices.nhhma

Graph Theoretic Approaches to Understand Resilience of Complex Systems

Modern society is critically dependent on a network of complex systems for almost every social and economic function. While increasing complexity in large-scale engineered systems offer many advantages including high efficiency, performance and robustness, it inadvertently makes them vulnerable to unanticipated perturbations. A disruption affecting even one component may result in large cascading impacts on the entire system due to high interconnectedness. Large direct and indirect impacts across national and international boundaries of natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, infrastructure failures like the Northeast blackout, epidemics like the H1N1 influenza, terrorist attacks like the 9/11, and social unrests like the Arab Spring are indicative of the vulnerability associated with growing complexity. There is an urgent need for a quantitative framework to understand resilience of complex systems with different system architectures. In this work, a novel framework is developed that integrates graph theory with statistical and modeling techniques for understanding interconnectedness, interdependencies, and resilience of distinct large-scale systems while remaining cognizant of domain specific details. The framework is applied to three diverse complex systems, 1) Critical Infrastructure Sectors (CIS) of the U.S economy, 2) the Kalundborg Industrial Symbiosis (KIS), Denmark and 3) the London metro-rail infrastructure. These three systems are strategically chosen as they represent complex systems of distinct sizes and span different spatial scales. The framework is utilized for understanding the influence of both network structure level properties and local node and edge level properties on resilience of diverse complex systems. At the national scale, application of this framework on the U.S. economic network reveals that excessive interconnectedness and interdependencies among CIS significantly amplify impacts of targeted disruptions, and negatively influence its resilience. At the regional scale, analysis of KIS reveals that increasing diversity, redundancy, and multi-functionality is imperative for developing resilient and sustainable IS systems. At the urban scale, application of this framework on the London Metro system identifies stations and rail connections that are sources of functional and structural vulnerability, and must be secured for improving resilience. This framework provides a holistic perspective to understand and propose data-driven recommendations to strengthen resilience of large-scale complex engineered systems