Self-organized industrial symbiosis (IS) starts with one actor's decision to invest in a waste recovery plant and the other actors' decision to buy the recovered flow. Technical and institutional conditions of the cluster influence actors' decisions. This paper explores the emergence of IS collaborations in industrial clusters under different techno-economic conditions in the long term. We propose a mixed-integer linear programming model that incorporates costs and constraints associated with waste recovery and exchange to study actors' investment decisions and investigate shaped symbiotic exchanges under rising energy prices and limited electricity supply. The approach is implemented in Iran's Persian Gulf Mining and Metals Special Economic Zone as a case study. The results revealed that changes in internal or external condition simultaneously influence the industrial and waste recovery plants. For instance, increasing energy prices without raising product prices significantly decreased the production level of industrial plants and, consequently, heat recovery potential. Furthermore, the waste heat recovery plants' contribution to improving the cluster's economic and environmental performance was not the same. Electricity recovery from a power plant's waste heat can result in 55 PJ grid electricity intake reduction and 720 M€ cluster cash flow increase. Recovered cooling or electricity from the steelmaking plant waste heat was consumed internally rather than shaping IS. These model outcomes show its capability to study IS within the socio-technical structure of the cluster, not a standalone phenomenon. Implemented conceptualization offers a novel system-level approach, which could be adjusted to assess other industrial development strategies. ... Read more

Emerging economies produce 70-90% of the world’s steel, cement, and chemicals, which are essential for development. However, performance indicators such as carbon intensity and energy use per GDP reveal that industrial development trends in emerging economies are not sustainable. The ideal of industrial development that sustains and improves environmental and social structures has resulted in several scientific disciplines, one of which is industrial symbiosis (IS). Imitating natural ecosystems, IS aims to benefit from geographic proximity in industrial clusters for waste recovery and exchange between traditionally separate industries. The formation of IS results in a more sustainable production system by improving the material and energy efficiency of the whole cluster.

Here, there is a need for a systematic approach that acknowledges the socio-technical complexity of clusters for IS implementation. This Ph.D. dissertation aimed to understand how industrial symbiosis (IS) shapes within the complex socio-technical structure of industrial clusters to improve their environmental and economic performance in the long term. The first requirement for IS emergence is the existence of technical and collaborative potential due to geographic proximity. Moreover, external factors also influence actors' behaviors in the cluster and, consequently, IS formation. Rules and regulations, on the one hand, and economic conditions, on the other hand, steer actors' decisions toward IS implementation. This research combines engineering, social science, and economic assessment methods to study IS emergence as a part of a (larger) system.

To this end, a stepwise approach was taken, starting with assessing the technical potential for IS in an emerging industrial cluster (Chapter 2). We then studied the structure of previous collaborations in the cluster by analyzing regional and national institutions governing actors' behavior (Chapter 3). After assessing IS emergence's technical, collaborative, and institutional aspects, these aspects were incorporated with financial requirements in a MILP optimization model to study system behavior as a whole (Chapter 4). We investigated the formation of IS collaboration under different external conditions and evaluated the contribution of formed IS collaborations to cluster performance improvement. The research further examined the interplay between IS and carbon capture and storage toward a more sustainable cluster development (Chapter 5).

To examine the feasibility and functionality of the proposed methods, we used the “Persian Gulf mines and metals special economic zone” (PGSEZ), an iron and steel-based cluster in Iran, as a real case study. The steel industry is critical for economic modernization and one of the most energy-intensive and polluting industries. 23% of final energy demand and 28% of direct CO2 emissions in the industrial sector belong to iron and steel production. This dissertation extends our understanding of the formation of IS as an integrated component of industrial clusters through several conceptual and methodological contribution, while the case study contributes to filling the gap in regional IS studies in developing oil-rich countries, where governing institutional and economic conditions are different from developed economies.
... Read more

Industrial Symbiosis (IS) is a means for sustainable cluster development. The first consideration for implementing IS in a cluster is to identify technical opportunities for exchanging waste material and or energy. However, the definition and methods for assessing the technical potential of IS are not elaborated in the literature. This research proposes a method to evaluate IS potential that considers different system boundaries. The method allows for explicitly reflecting current and expected developments at plant and cluster level. The suggested method was applied to the Persian Gulf Mining and Metals Special Economic Zone (PGSEZ) in Iran. The case study shows that expanding the system boundaries to include the waste flows inside steelmaking and direct reduction plants could result in an 8% increase in available waste heat. Heat recovery possibilities outside the cluster boundaries offered 118 MW cooling plus 368 MW heating potential compared to 158 MW demand for electricity in the cluster. Furthermore, less than 20% of generated by-products could currently be reused in the cluster, while theoretically all by-products could be utilized today in other industries such as cement and ceramic. These findings support the use of IS as a way to open new perspectives for EIC development policies. ... Read more

Industrial Symbiosis (IS) is a collaboration between nearby industrial plants to exchange waste material and energy and achieve economic and environmental benefits that cannot be obtained individually. IS emergence in a cluster requires both technical potentials for material and energy exchange and social readiness for collaboration. In this paper, to gain insight into IS dynamics in emerging industrial clusters; we investigate shared concepts governing actors' behavior in the form of rules and regulations, and social norms and practices. We implemented the IS dynamics framework to reveal which dynamics are supported either by the legislation or actors' preferences. The Persian Gulf Mining and Metal Industries Special Economic Zone in Iran is used as a case study. The case study revealed that previous successful collaborations in the cluster were often self-organized, but stakeholders preferred to initiate new IS collaborations if financial incentives and infrastructure are provided. Meanwhile, the institutional analysis showed that institutional arrangements (e.g., pricing and penalties) are not in favor of IS emergence. Even though stakeholders might engage in self-organized IS because of inherent problems such as resource scarcity, the lack of clear and effective institutions could hinder IS. This understanding can help both the government and stakeholders in their strategies for future collaborations under different economic and environmental policies. ... Read more