Optimising the industrial symbiosis (is): the proposed redevelopment

Abstract

Industrial symbiosis (IS) has been emerged aiming the integration of industrial complexes, in which by-products of materials and energy are using as feedstock instead of being wasted. Since organisations cooperatively increase their mutual sustainable benefits simultaneously through IS, a number of IS projects have been initiated across the whole world. However, most of the projects have been failed and discontinued in long term undermining the expected collaborative gains and efficiencies. Hence, recent studies articulate the necessity of having a standardised mechanism towards implementing the resource efficiency optimised IS designs. Thus, this paper aims to present the issues in the current process of IS development in order to propose a mechanism for redeveloping the process through resource flow efficiency optimisation. A systematic review of key literature was conducted in the areas of IS, its design and implementation procedures. The data collected through the secondary survey was then analysed manually to identify the different stages of the IS development process and related issues. As many scholars recognised, most of IS projects have been discontinued due to the shortcomings and the inefficiencies of the IS development process. Thus, the necessity of having a standardised and more robust model for optimising IS is recognised. Finally, the proposed redevelopment is conceptualised by introducing a new phase of re-evaluation and optimisation modelling to evaluate the symbiosis relationships prior implementation to consider them either for implementing or for replanning.