Initiating resource partnerships for industrial symbiosis

Industrial symbiosis is a strategy to limit carbon emissions whilst promoting resource efficiency and business development. This study interprets industrial symbiosis as waste-to-resource innovation. Understanding how these innovations are actually realized, and hence how they can be promoted by public and private partners, is still limited. Particularly, initiating resource partnerships for waste-to-resource innovations in the absence of a government-funded facilitator, such as previously the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP) in the UK, has remained underexplored. This paper explores how companies identify potential resource partners in terms of network and geographical distances. Based on case studies of waste-to-resource innovation in the Humber region of the UK, the paper concludes that (1) companies can identify resource partners among/through their direct contacts that are involved in resource production/management themselves; and (2) that about 73% of these connections are located within a 75 miles’ radius. Furthermore, various new ‘facilitators’ were identified, demonstrating the need for a refined government approach to facilitate industrial symbiosis as part of the wider transition towards the circular economy.