The role of geospatial industrial diversity in the facilitation of regional industrial symbiosis

Abstract

This paper explores geospatial industrial diversity and its influence on the brokerage of industrial symbiosis working agreements (otherwise known as synergies). Research conducted in 2011 concluded that within third-party brokered resource exchanges between two or more normally unrelated companies, the industrial diversity of a given geographic area was the primary driver behind how far a material travels from its point of origin to its point of reuse. This conclusion was largely derived from intuition and the elimination of other widely discussed drivers or limitations to symbiotic resource movement (e.g., mental distances, resource value and/or the physical characteristics of a resource). The presented article sets out to empirically test this suggestion by mapping the geospatial industrial diversity of England and comparing it to the movement of resources within synergies facilitated by the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP). Among other results, it was established that there are correlations between geospatial industrial diversity and the distance materials move in addition to the number of synergy types and the replication of synergies facilitated within a given area. It was found that 76% of synergies were facilitated within areas of high (upper 10% of values) contiguous diversity, areas of high 'species' richness possessed a greater variety of synergies, and areas of high synergy replication were areas of high 'species' population evenness. Based on a sensitivity analysis of diversity indices and diversity mapping techniques, it was concluded that high 'species' richness provided the greatest opportunities for realising local industrial symbiosis.