Implementing circular economy in Umbria through an industrial symbiosis network model

Industrial symbiosis (IS) studies the physical flows of resources (e.g. materials and energy) through the local industrial system using a systematic approach. IS approach is in line with the recent European strategies of... [ view full abstract ]

Industrial symbiosis (IS) studies the physical flows of resources (e.g. materials and energy) through the local industrial system using a systematic approach. IS approach is in line with the recent European strategies of decoupling economic growth from natural resource consumption through the promotion of a more sustainable business models. IS is actually identified as a tool to implement circular economy in the last circular economy package of European Commission. According to the internationally recognized waste hierarchy IS application at local scale can contribute to the waste prevention and to the systematic reuse of waste and by-products minimizing in this way the need to extract natural resources and the depletion of environment. ENEA and Sviluppumbria (Multi-functional Agency of the Umbria Regional Authority) cooperated to develop a IS network model among the companies in the Umbria Region territory for the implementation of industrial symbiosis and new cooperative business models. The project for an Industrial Symbiosis (IS) network in Umbria is currently in progress and at this stage includes: analysis of the productive sector in Umbria; local network activation with public and private actors; and collection and processing of data. The methodology adopted to support companies in the implementation of industrial symbiosis pathways has been developed by ENEA consists of: analysis of productive sectors in the region; companies involvement; network activation and promotion activities through stakeholders involvement at regional level; IS workshop finalized to have information on input-output resources; development of a draft of the technical dossiers for the main synergies; consultation with companies and other stakeholders; revision of the dossiers and development of their final version; delivery of the final dossiers to the companies involved. Sviluppumbria contacted about 100 companies in order to involve them in the IS working tables. Two workshops were held in Terni and Assisi, where more than 50 SMEs participated. At the workshop held in Terni the distribution of companies by production sector appears balanced, as they came from the manufacturing sector, energy, chemistry, agriculture and construction. In Assisi most companies came from agricultural sector followed by manufacturing sector and with a small contribution of energy, paper and construction sectors. ENEA processed all the resources data in order to carry out the single company reports. These reports include the input and output resources, the matches occurred during the two workshops and eventually other matches proposed by ENEA. More than 250 resources were shared and about 200 potential synergies were identified. ENEA is now working on the technical dossiers. These dossiers are operative handbooks including European, Italian and regional regulations, guidelines, technical standards, logistic and economical aspects useful for supporting companies in synergies implementation. Many technical solutions for waste and by-product materials, water, and energy reuse between neighboring industries will be studied as well. The next steps will be the involvement of the interested companies to focus on specific solutions for resources valorization and a consultation with other stakeholders, in order to analyse the feasibility of the synergy and the potential barriers.