Digital Platforms for Industrial Symbiosis

Industrial symbiosis contributes to the realisation of a circular economy where underutilised assets are shared among different companies and the residual outputs from one industry are used as feedstock for the production processes of other industries. While digital platforms have the potential to facilitate the exchange of excess resources in industrial symbiosis networks, existing platforms have not been very successful hitherto. This research empirically investigates the barriers to industrial symbiosis and how digital platforms (fail to) address them. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eleven prospective platform providers based in Norwegian industrial parks, and two platform developers and one provider in the Netherlands. Results show that the uptake of platform-enabled industrial symbiosis is still hampered by limited commitment to sustainability, a lack of cooperation and information sharing, as well as technical and economic barriers. Platform design only partially solves the challenges specific to matchmaking platforms that facilitate the identification and exploitation of synergy opportunities.