DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INDUSTRIAL SYMBIOSIS COMPETENCES NETWORK: THE STORM PROJECT

Industrial symbiosis (IS) addresses at making the residues of one productive sector available for another one. This approach is not only a potential factor of competitiveness for industrial activities and of reduction of... [ view full abstract ]

Industrial symbiosis (IS) addresses at making the residues of one productive sector available for another one. This approach is not only a potential factor of competitiveness for industrial activities and of reduction of environmental impacts, but also a factor of enrichment. The European Commission assigns to IS a strategic role in the resource efficiency, as reflected by its planning and funding documents on Resource Efficiency and Circular Economy.

Within the frame of the EIT Raw Materials, STORM (Industrial Symbiosis for the Sustainable Management of Raw Materials) is a Network of Infrastructures project aiming at establishing an excellence network dedicated to provide services and tools to external customers for the implementation of innovative, sustainable business and cooperation models, focusing on industrial symbiosis.

STORM consortium is based on 11 partners, coordinated by ENEA and characterized by complementary competences for exploration and evaluation of secondary resources, waste management, waste recycling, eco-innovation, industrial ecology. A database of the services shared by partners and available for external use was established (STORM toolbox).

Two IS pilot applications with the involvement of companies were performed in Ljubljana and Assisi in 2017. Both were joint events with the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Sviluppumbria (the Multi-functional Agency of the Umbria Regional Authority), respectively. In both cases the personal contact with companies was very important for their involvement in the project. In Ljubljana and in Assisi two different methodologies - already tested by ENEA in other national projects - and formats were adopted for collecting the resource data. The differences in the methodology used concern only the pre-event activity and the forms used during the event. The procedures adopted during the events were the same. The results are briefly summarised below:

• Ljubljana: 23 industries (construction sector, industry and mining), 24 input resources and 48 output resources shared, more than 100 potential matches;
• Assisi: 26 companies (agroindustry, metal industry, construction, electronics, textile/clothing, livestock, paper, food industry, etc.), 35 input resources and 90 output resources shared, about 100 potential matches.

The resources shared were mainly “materials”: 56% and 83% of the total resources in Ljubljana and Assisi, respectively. In Assisi almost all matches involved materials. After the events, each delegate received a summary report with the preliminary results. Moreover, ENEA prepared a single company report with the matches of each company. The synergies are being examined to assess the technical-operative feasibility also through the collaboration of the involved companies and interested stakeholders: operative handbooks are under development for the main synergies.

Another pilot application will be held in the Basque Country (Spain) in January 2018 with the aim to test the effectiveness of the common methodology, in order to set it up for the specific industrial symbiosis case to be carried out in Budapest in May 2018. For both the events a promotion campaign for stakeholder involvement in ongoing. In addition, a draft of both the business model and the business plan for the self-sustainability of the STORM network after the funding period is under definition.