Opportunities for the uptake of industrial symbiosis in European regions, Helsinki, Finland, 22-23 May 2019
SEI Stockholm Environment Institute as ENHANCE partner has attended the workshop on Industrial Symbiosis organized by the Policy Learning Platform in Helsinki.
Our partner had really benefited from this workshop of active exchange of experience and learning about industrial symbiosis and has shared with the others partners the information gathered.
The workshop has represented a very good opportunity for learning and discussing through sharing experiences, solutions and practices with regards to stimulation and facilitation of Industrial Symbiosis in the regional context.
The Policy Learning Platform event about opportunities for the uptake of industrial symbiosis in European regions was a perfect balance of practical workshop and sharing of best practices from around Europe.
During the workshop have been identified different enablers and obstacles for creating industrial symbiosis on a regional level. If the Industrial Symbiosis is part of regional planning, like in Finland, it makes it easier to motivate the local companies to participate in the system. As obstacles in other regions, the strict waste management laws were mentioned. Currently, many companies are afraid of participating in this transition since financial penalties might occur if they are not in line with waste management laws, even if it makes sense environmental and financial point of view to cooperate with another company with sharing of resources. The experiences and referents of other European regions in this area are real opportunities to identify solutions to possible barriers or weaknesses that in some cases will have to address industrial symbiosis projects.
Denmark and Finland have been very successful with creating a favouring ecosystem for symbiotic cooperation between companies. In Finland, for example, some companies have initiated a mutually beneficial system on their own, without any external help. This shows that with favouring policies companies can start creating industrial symbiotic systems themselves, without any external intervenes.
All info about the workshop can be find on www.interregeurope.eu/industrialsymbiosis/
