Use of analytical tools to simulate and optimize industrial symbiosis in a sustainability perspective: the Symbioptima case

The United Nations´ Sustainable Development Goals requires industrial infrastructures to provide a positive impact on society by reducing waste generation and resource consumption. The enhancement and optimization of symbiotic aspects in industry clusters can support the achievement of such goals. The present paper illustrates a new quantification methodology to foster the implementation of a circular economy within existing industry clusters. A Java tool has been developed to track and optimize material and energy flows within different symbiosis scenarios. The quantitative assessment is focused on identifying environmental, social and cost gains for specific Key Performance Indicators. Furthermore, multi-criteria optimization allows to identify heuristic solutions for symbiosis scenarios. The tool has been implemented with reference to a preliminary symbiosis case for an industrial Sector. Preliminary results evidence that industrial symbiosis and industrial sustainability are complementary but different areas. Moreover, concurrent applications of such paradigms introduce a number of new challenges and operational managerial issues to be addressed.