While attending ECOMONDO on 5-8 November 2019 in Rimini (Italy), SFC started collected contributions on industrial symbiosis which will be part of the Italian best practices included in the Blueprint report for industrial symbiosis developed by INSIGHT. The aim was to identify the emerging skills of industrial symbiosis processes.
The first elements critical to the success of IS and mentioned by the experts interviewed are the following:
- cooperation between specific know-how, such as those represented by Novamont and Fabbrica Pinze Schio, who respectively worked on the identification of an innovative and biodegradable raw material and on the development of a certified EN 13432 process for the production of compostable cutlery. In particular, the CEO Armido Marana presented the ECOZEMA brand;
- ability to interact with companies that face barriers to innovate in the production process and the use of regenerated resources, both in terms of regulatory and certification constraints. To realise possible interconnections on the territory, it is necessary to know it well, to involve stakeholders and interest representatives, to create opportunities for relations with companies, also addressing the issue of prevention of waste production, as required by the EC. This is the testimony of Claudia Brunori, ENEA researcher and head of the USER Division of efficient use of resources and closure of cycles;
- communicating the results of the industrial symbiosis processes, which in the logic of the start-up Sfridoo® is also equivalent to identifying operational saving and profitability processes with respect to what apparently has no value for businesses. Marco Battaglia, CEO of the start-up, relaunches the knowledge of waste management techniques which, to date, is still not widespread in the management system of companies, especially SMEs;
- easing the interpretability and applicability of the legislation in certain contexts can facilitate industrial symbiosis, confirms Tiberio Daddi of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Institute of Management, reporting the case of the Marble district in Tuscany. Trust between companies, as well as willingness to cooperate and interact is not always adequate to support the exchange of value between companies in the same territory. Finally, the availability of information on the type of by-product present on a territory is not effective. The identification of actors capable of managing this information and facilitating the triggering of industrial symbiosis is important.
