The following recommendations have been developed based on a combination of academic literature, empirical case study work and informed by the seminar and panel discussion conducted in Vilnius on 3rd December, 2024 organised by the Ministry of Agriculture of Lithuania.
5.1 Recommendations to National Authorities
1. Create an enabling institutional and policy environment to support circular business models (including industrial symbiosis) and valorisation by:
Empowering sub-national authorities — to engage in strategic development of the regions (as opposed to merely performing administrative duties). Being closest to the citizens, resources, and companies, local authorities are in a unique position to build networks and more effectively mobilise action. This requires building capacities within local authorities, particularly in countries with a history of centralised government functions.
Designating local and regional intermediaries — such as regional development companies, cluster organisations or industrial parks to bridge national strategies with local initiatives. Intermediaries acting as coordinating bodies can play a vital role in fostering collaboration, mobilising resources, and facilitating the development of innovative solutions, including resource exchange (Johnsen et al., 2014; Mirata 2018).
Aligning industrial symbiosis and circular economy with broader national agendas — can increase their relevance and urgency. For example, in Latvia, the national push for energy independence has acted as a significant driver for change. Creating additional ‘independences’ in areas such as biobased medical goods and other critical resources, can serve as a motivation for businesses and authorities to promote IS initiatives.
Providing financial incentives — in the form of funds for structural transformation, or green transition, as well as indirectly via funding testbeds for R&D and piloting or platforms for collaboration. Given that green transitions require innovative and disruptive business ideas, these require specific financial schemes for high-risk investments. Compensation measures could also be implemented to assist companies in utilising secondary raw materials more effectively.
Coupling the process of industrialisation with the industrial symbiosis — given that several BSR economies are growing towards maturity, higher levels of industrialisation can be expected across several sectors. Identifying industrialisation processes at early stages can help to introduce industrial symbiosis arrangements from the start.
2. Allow for policy experimentation (institutional flexibility) – increase the tolerance for different management approaches in different regions. Successful examples of industrial symbiosis showcase different approaches and have undergone different trajectories. Hence one-size-fits-all policies may not be most effective for all types of regions.
3. Build a shared understanding of industrial symbiosis, including the potential opportunities, challenges, and regulatory barriers. This can be achieved by:
Mapping challenges and turning them onto opportunities — Close dialogue with companies can generate a two-way understanding of the challenges and identify strategies to overcome them as well as to profit from the opportunities. This process entails highlighting the business opportunities that come with structural change.
Promoting knowledge exchange — Foster multi-stakeholder dialogue between industries, academia, and policymakers to bridge knowledge gaps and align efforts. Showcase successful IS projects to demonstrate tangible economic and environmental benefits, building confidence and inspiring.
Creating opportunities for capacity building — via dissemination of practical experiences from within the country and internationally as well by creating capacity-building programmes focusing on equipping local and regional facilitators with the skills and knowledge to effectively promote IS and business development in general.
4. Strengthen research priorities for circular economy and industrial symbiosis development tailored to the specific national, regional and sectoral contexts. Priority should by placed on:
Understanding governance structures, business cultures and local idiosyncrasies — business and ways stakeholders interact is ultimately rooted in culture, tradition and governance structures. Inducing change requires understanding of these contextual specificities.
Industrial symbiosis dynamics and outcomes — Developing a deeper knowledge of how industrial symbiosis practices evolve, their socio-economic and environmental outcomes, and the factors influencing their success.
Promoting interdisciplinary integration — Enhancing coordination between industrial symbiosis research and other related disciplines, ensuring insights and innovations are shared and leveraged across fields.
Evaluating the role of finance — particularly for high risk, and transformative industries, and collaborative business models.
5.2 Recommendations to Sub-national Authorities
Municipalities and meso-level institutions can significantly enhance the development and expansion of industrial symbiosis via:
5. Strategic integration and capacity building:
Integrating industrial symbiosis into broader local strategies — including local development, business promotion, and sustainability strategies. This will help legitimise supportive actions.
Building capacities within local administrations — on strategic economic and business development issues, including knowledge of business ecosystems, innovation processes, and stakeholder engagement to enhance local authorities’ ability to initiate and lead co-operation processes and fora.
6. Support decentralised leadership and partnership:
Nourishing decentralised leadership — encourage different actors lead innovative developments based on their own capacities and initiative. The sum of actions generates collective progress. Coordination is not always the role of the same kind of actor. Open the possibility for different forms of leadership, either industry-led ventures, or a facilitating entity, be it a cluster organisation, a municipality, a science park, or a university.
Build strong and transparent social relations between key players by creating opportunities for networking and learning from best practices e.g., joint study trips. IS cannot be achieved by actors working in isolation, building partnerships between actors with complementary capacities and knowledge is essential.
Foster an entrepreneurial and collaborative culture, and closer inter-regional collaboration— by engaging municipal employees and local businesses, raising awareness of the benefits of IS among the business community. Develop platforms and routines that enhance mutual understanding and trust among diverse local and regional actors.
7. Support data gathering and provide infrastructure:
Compiling databases of inputs and outputs — with emphasis on waste and resource streams within existing industries and match them with a list of possible applications. Identify the practical needs for exchange in terms of location and distance between interested parties, and infrastructure or legal considerations.
Providing a hub and facilities for partnership and experimentation — either physical or virtual spaces that facilitate regular interaction and may include testbeds or laboratories, possibly in cooperation with universities or within industrial facilities. Publicly owned utilities like district heating or energy services can also serve as practical testbeds for industrial symbiosis, fostering innovation. Strategically plan industrial areas to support IS ventures—ensure available plots are available when potential symbioses are identified and develop supportive infrastructure like renewable energy, transportation networks, and waste systems.
8. Strategically use ‘green public procurement’:
Use green public procurement as a tool to generate demand, industrial capacity and incentivise market creation. Public entities at different levels are large clients or buyers of goods and services within schools, public transport services, health care, and in infrastructure development. Planning ahead strategically on public purchases can steer private companies towards offering upcycled or more sustainable alternatives. This requires developing procurement criteria that favour circular products and services.
9. Harvest the low hanging fruits — start from the most obvious and easier steps, such as the lowest complexity forms of reutilisation of side-streams e.g., biogas, and then move forwards to more complex ones. This will allow to build trustful relations and get a taste of the mutual benefits of collaboration. Initial success is a strong basis to embark into more challenging endeavours. For example, establishing a joint biogas plant is a basic step to add value to residual biomass. Examples like Kalundborg and Sotenäs show that beginning with easily achievable projects can establish a circular business model, producing not only biogas and heat but also fertilisers, thus generating profits and savings while showcasing the value of industrial symbiosis.
10. Explore creative and viable business models — the potential benefits between companies may rely on co-ownership models and public-private partnerships.
11. Boost communication and create confidence and trust — between different establishments of the network including core companies, suppliers, and authorities.
12. Use storytelling to create a common narrative — using stable terminology and language is key to create common grounds among all stakeholders involved and set clearly identifiable goals. By create storyline of the development journey and collaboration the narrative shifts from individual firms working for their own interests, to a community involved in setting a joint development path. Common ownership of the narrative increases support and trust.
13. Establish collaboration with research institutions — to foster technical and business model innovations. Research institutions and researchers can provide knowledge, technical solutions, but also broader support in adapting to new regulations, creating new business models, and act as neutral facilitators between different actors and interests.
14. Seek external funding to establish pilot projects — Industrial symbiosis can emerge in the form of a pilot project. Funding for structural change and green transitions can provide the fuel needed to establish the basis and build momentum for co-operation.
5.4 Recommendations to Financial Sector
Access to finance is a recurrent bottleneck voiced by stakeholders aiming to work with industrial symbiosis and innovative business models. While rural areas are resource rich, from which promising solutions can emerge, they often are excluded from financial capital. In addition, the ‘green economy’ calls for highly innovative and disruptive solutions, which are considered high risk investments, and thus are often excluded from financial support. To overcome these challenges finance institutions should:
15. Develop financial solutions that support ‘green economy’ initiatives – ranging from circular economy to industrial symbiosis solutions — including credit for high-risk investments, and loans for collaborative business models.
16. Promote successful industrial symbiosis and circular economy financing models to the wider financial sector — by disseminating success stories and financing models to the wider banking sector.
17. Provide more funding opportunities in rural and economically constrained areas — where most of the resources available for the ‘green economy’ are located.