Fostering industrial symbiosis in process industries: An innovation policy perspective

Industrial symbiosis (IS) holds significant potential to reduce resource consumption and improve economic efficiency within process industries. Previous studies have shown that innovative solutions play an important role in advancing IS. However, the role of policy instruments promoting innovation has not yet been systematically analysed in relation to industrial symbiosis. This study takes a deeper look at the potential of innovation policy instruments to foster IS in the process industries. It addresses how such instruments may influence IS formation and key IS dimensions. The analysis is a carried out as a constructive conceptual analysis and the findings suggest that such instruments carry overall good potential to foster IS. However, the potential varies across the phases of IS formation and the IS dimensions. The instruments aimed at knowledge sharing and dissemination, i.e. technical services and advice, clusters, collaboration policies and innovation networks, show a particular potential to foster IS in the process industries both in relation to the IS formation phases and the IS dimensions. Acknowledging the limitations of a conceptual analysis, a set of propositions is suggested that can be used in future research to empirically test and validate the findings.