the European Commission in December 2015 addresses this problem and adapts the relevant legislative framework (EC 2016a).
82: Industrial Symbiosis
One of the most powerful tools for resource efficiency is represented by industrial symbiosis, creating cooperation and synergies between two or more industries that engage in sharing and common valorisation of resources such as: materials, energy, water, assets, expertise, logistics, excess capacity, etc. Networks are not necessarily limited to industrial partners but often include non-industrial participants such as municipalities. Proximity of participants is of advantage, therefore implementation of industrial symbiosis typically is at a localised scale, such as in industrial parks, however, networks can include participants at different geographical sites.
Most common is the case that a material stream, regarded by one entity as waste, gains added value as it becomes a valuable resource for another entity. Shared use of specific equipment or common pooling of resources are other examples of symbiotic cooperation. The best-known case of a network with optimized exchange of materials and energy between dissimilar industries remains Kalundborg (Denmark), which became the pioneer of industrial symbiosis in the second half of the last century.
Throughout the past decade, industrial symbiosis has become a widely-prioritized strategic policy tool in the context of the green economy. Embedded in the EU’s flagship initiative for resource efficiency, the Roadmap for a Resource Efficient Europe (EC 2011b) recommends exploiting resource efficiency gains through industrial symbiosis as a priority for EU Member States. In line with this, industrial symbiosis is also a focus of the EU circular economy package launched in December 2015 (EC 2016a), recognizing its high potential for delivering the circular economy. EUR-ISA, the European Industrial Symbiosis Association aims to connect the industrial symbiosis networks across EU Member States. The G7 Summit in June 2015, under German presidency, committed to establishing the G7 Alliance on Resource
Efficiency to share knowledge and create networks, and to strengthen the pioneering role of the G7 countries in the field of resource efficiency as a signal for other countries, and industrial symbiosis was explicitly put on the alliance’s event agenda already in 2015 (German Federal Government 2015).
83: Ecodesign and the key role of the design stage
Choice of materials, design and production mode determine environmental performance and the durability of a product. Recyclability and reparability of products, as well as potential re-use of components, for example in remanufacturing, are strongly influenced by the presence and complexity of substances and mixtures, and by the assembly of components. The design stage therefore has a central role in a circular economy. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), which extends responsibility of the producer to the collection, recovery and final disposal phase, is one element to ensuring that companies pay more attention to end-of-life (EoL) environmental performance already during product design. One example of EPR implementation is recovery and recycling schemes for sales packaging waste. For electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), EPR is implemented throughout the EU through the WEEE Directive. Furthermore, for EEE the EU Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive has been influential, as it restricts the use of certain hazardous substances, such as lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, polybrominated biphenyls and other dangerous compounds, in electrical and electronic equipment.
Recognition of the key role of the design stage is also reflected by ecodesign measures in the new circular economy package of the European Commission (EC 2016a). At present, ecodesign in the EU regulations is strongly linked to energy efficiency, since the Ecodesign Directive (Directive 2009/125/EC) refers to energy-using and energy-related products sold in the Member States. Energy labelling and ecolabelling are elements that have proven to foster the adoption of ecodesign principles.
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