Approaching industrial sustainability investments in resource efficiency through agent-based simulation

Abstract

To develop more sustainable industrial systems industrialists and policy makers need to better understand how to respond to economic, environmental, and social challenges and transform industrial behaviour by leveraging appropriate industrial technology investments to reshape the current manufacturing value chain. Investments have to be collected on the private as well as public sides taking into account the stakeholders’ macro-economic framework. Since aggregate mathematical models, assuming informed, rational behaviour leading to equilibrium conditions cannot catch the resulting complexity, an agent-based modelling and simulation approach is proposed to investigate policies to support investments in resource efficiency. The EURACE agent-based framework has been adopted and modified by coupling the environmental sector with other established macroeconomic dimensions. The findings of this research establish the potential and capability of the proposed approach for investigating policies for sustainability transition analysis and evaluation.