Gamification and serious games applied to industrial symbiosis

In an industrial symbiosis, co-located firms form a network by exchanging wasteby-products and energy. While industrial symbiosis networks can arise from the actions of individual firm managers, a facilitated network seeks to... [ view full abstract ]

In an industrial symbiosis, co-located firms form a network by exchanging wasteby-products and energy. While industrial symbiosis networks can arise from the actions of individual firm managers, a facilitated network seeks to accelerate its development by breaking trust barriers between firms (Paquin and Howard-Grenville, 2012). The research field of industrial symbiosis has matured over the last years; however, the concept still needs to be adopted by graduate students and professionals. Could games be used to improve the creation and the development of industrial symbiosis networks?

Serious game are games whose ultimate goal is something other than pure entertainment (Bellotti et al, 2010). Two examples related to industrial ecology are “Circulab”, which deal with circular business models, and “In The Loop”, a tool for teaching about material criticality (Whalen & Peck, 2014). While a number of agent-based simulations have been constructed for industrial symbiosis settings (for example, Batten, 2009), no examples of serious games applied to industrial symbiosis were found. For the past two years, the CTTÉI has has been developing a serious game, « Kalundborg – Zero Waste Objective », intended to teach industrial symbiosis practices to university students and professionals. The main inspiration for the game is the Kalundborg Symbiosis as well as the application of the Synergie Quebec methodology. In this article, we aim to present the design methodology and the rationale behind the game elements.

More broadly, gamification is a term that has gained traction in the past years to describe « the use of game elements in non-game context » (Deterding et al, 2011). Examples of game elements include points, badges, leaderboards and roles (Seaborn and Fels, 2015), but gamification can also extend to game design patterns, mechanics, principles and heuristics (Deterding et al, 2011). Related to industrial ecology, “Recyclebank” is an example of an application using a point and rewards system to encourage recycling practices. We review how industrial symbiosis facilitators integrate gamification aspects into their methodology. We then present the benefits and pitfalls for the application of gamification principles to the creation and the development of industrial symbiosis networks.

Key references

Batten, D. F. (2009). Fostering Industrial Symbiosis With Agent-Based Simulation and Participatory Modeling. Journal Of Industrial Ecology,13(2), 197-213. Doi: 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2009.00115.x

Bellotti, F., Berta, R., & De Gloria, A. (2010). Designing Effective Serious Games: Opportunities and Challenges for Research. International Journal Of Emerging Technologies In Learning (IJET), 5(SI3), pp. 22-35. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijet...

Chertow, Marian R. (2000). Industrial symbiosis : Literature and Taxonomy. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, Vol. 25: 313 -337

Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness: defining "gamification". In proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference, Tampere, Finland, September 28-30. doi : 10.1145/2181037.2181040

Seaborn, K., & Fels, D. I. (2015). Gamification in theory and action: A survey. International Journal Of Human - Computer Studies, 7414-31. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2014.09.006

Whalen, K. & Peck, D. (2014), In the Loop – Sustainable, Circular Product Design and Critical Materials. International Journal Of Automation Technology, 8(5).