Industrial Symbiosis Incentives: Mitigating risks for facilitated implementation

Industrial symbiosis (IS) is considered as a business model of the circular economy. This business model proposes symbiotic exchanges, also known as synergies, between companies, allowing the flow of resources, wastes and utilities. In recent years, the IS initiatives (Eco-industrial parks, Urban Industrial Symbiosis and symbiotic exchanges) have been exponentially growing around the world. This increase is related to raising environmental awareness and the opportunities to obtain economic, environmental and social benefits through the implementation of this model. Despite the exponential growth of IS initiatives, the companies are still facing problems in the achievement of reliable and permanent synergies, especially those without antecedents and IS background. Over the years the literature has identified several factors in the IS emerging process. Incentives are among these factors, being defined as unlocking tools or mechanisms related to diverse areas such as: economic, political, social, intermediaries, process, technology, etc. Authors believe that the large-scale implementation of IS incentives has not been properly addressed. In order to promote facilitated IS implementation and achieve a replicator effect, incentives should be fully addressed. In many case studies, it has been observed that the incentives for IS can be threatened by risks, compromising the implementation and hindering the emerging process. The aim of this paper is to contribute to unlock the emerging IS process, based on incentives identification, implementation risk identification and proposal of mitigation actions. With this purpose, this study developed an incentive identification framework based on the best practices of IS; a risk assessment model, based on internal and external risk factors and finally, a set of mitigation actions directed to the stakeholders. The main result of this study is a risk assessment model for IS implementation. The proposed methodology in this study, can be a useful tool for companies aiming to start symbiotic exchanges. This model might allow companies to have a facilitated implementation, allowing companies to prevent waste of resources in the emerging IS implementation process.