Digital Platforms for Industrial Symbiosis. An Exploration of Industrial Parks in Norway.

Abstract

Digital platforms have demonstrated to successfully improve the efficiency of many markets and are, therefore, supposed to play an important role in facilitating markets for secondary materials, thereby supporting the transition to a Circular Economy (CE). Industrial Symbiosis (IS), one of the strategies in achieving a CE, exploits the potential of exchanging excess industrial resources between traditionally separate industries. Since digital platforms can connect large numbers of users, they provide the possibility to facilitate matchmaking between sellers and buyers of industrial resources. Also, platforms could allow external service providers to serve the platform users, resulting in an ecosystem fostering innovation for the CE. However, IS platforms have not been very successful hitherto. Therefore, this research aims at finding out how to establish a digital platform to support IS among local businesses. Norwegian organisations operating at industrial parks are interviewed as prospective users of an IS platform since such platforms are not yet active in Norway. The findings are complemented with experiences from already running IS platforms in the Netherlands. From the empirical insights, it appeared that to ensure viability, an IS platform must start with a minimum set of features, called a minimum viable platform (MVP). The identified MVP is initially limited to asset sharing, because, amongst other reasons, it requires no large innovations from firms to transact on the platform, since shared assets are easily administered and just replace newly bought assets in existing processes. Making firms willing to participate in an IS platform, requires a critical mass of users, which an MVP most easily secures in collaboration with an existing industrial network organisation, as it is possible to quickly affiliate a large initial number of firms. Access to assets is relatively standardized, which increases the likelihood of finding matches within the proximity of the initial industrial network. Tension exists in the consideration of whom has the legitimacy to simultaneously reduce environmental impact and ensure a sustainable business model. However, since a large initial investment is required to secure a critical mass and no sufficient incentives exist for businesses to invest, the Norwegian government is needed to establish an IS platform. The MVP could gradually be expanded with providers of complementary services, which could, by connecting multiple MVPs, create an ecosystem that serves the full potential of IS. Although the data are from Norway and the Netherlands, the insights may be relevant for other countries.