Title: Determination of regional industrial symbiosis opportunities by using relationship mimicking with ESOTA^®

Authors: Sibel Uludag-Demirer; Goksel N. Demirer

Addresses: Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA ' Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA; Environmental Engineering, Middle East Technical University, 06800, Ankara, Turkey

Abstract: Implementation of Industrial Symbiosis (IS) is still a challenge, especially when the number of collaborators is high. In addition to the lack of information, there is a need to develop new and innovative techniques and tools to screen IS opportunities for any system independent of its scale. This study presents a methodology to determine IS opportunities using ESOTA^®. ESOTA^® is an IS match-making platform, based on relationship mimicking and was used as the main tool to analyse and determine IS opportunities. A case study was carried out in Gaziantep (Turkey) and 2012 companies from 166 different sectors were analysed to identify IS opportunities. Then, the sectors and IS opportunities were prioritised based on the results from ESOTA^® and feedback from the stakeholders. The outcomes covered a range of benefits, such as, energy and material recovery/reuse, waste recycling/reuse, which all addressed to considerable reduction in GHG emissions in a regional industrial zone.

Keywords: IS; industrial symbiosis; ICT; information and communications technology; resource efficiency; industrial park; regional planning.

DOI: 10.1504/PIE.2017.092722

Progress in Industrial Ecology, An International Journal, 2017 Vol.11 No.4, pp.343 - 360

Received: 01 Dec 2017
Accepted: 02 Mar 2018
Published online: 28 Jun 2018 *

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