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News The Benefits of Industrial Urban Symbiosis in Europe

The Benefits of Industrial Urban Symbiosis in Europe

Cooperation between industries and cities can change the way we look at waste. The key is Industrial-Urban Symbiosis, a circular economy concept at the core of the Symsites project.

What is the Industrial Symbiosis?

Industrial Symbiosis (IS) is a process that encourages industries to change their approach to waste management and disposal. By building new partnerships, industries can exchange waste and transform it into new raw materials or resources.

This process completely changes the traditional ‘take>manufacture>dispose’ production and consumption flows and encourages a circular economy approach.

Why Industrial + Urban Symbiosis?

Industrial Symbiosis (IS) can have an urban component. This is the case of Industrial-Urban Symbiosis, a way to exchange and reuse waste based on cooperation between enterprises and local authorities within an urban area.

Combining industrial and urban symbiosis (IUS) is a step toward better resource efficiency both in urban areas and industrial zones. IUS can in fact support the urban transition toward sustainability and industrial green innovation by creating relationships in the framework of a common low-carb strategy between industrial districts and neighbouring areas.

Industrial-Urban Symbiosis promotes the exchange of material between urban areas and industries by taking advantage of geographic proximity: a company’s waste (wastewater) becomes a raw material or resource for an urban area (irrigation water) and vice versa. The waste exchanged might be of any nature: water, food waste, energy in different forms, etc.

Industrial-Urban Symbiosis is one of the strategies used in the Circular Economy to promote sustainable growth and a more efficient use of natural resources.

Potential and existing resource exchanges in Industial-Urban Symbiosis

What are Industrial-Urban Symbiosis’s main benefits?

Industrial-Urban Symbiosis (IUS) can benefit companies, municipalities, places and people from an economic, environmental and social point of view.

Economic benefits

IUS helps reduce the costs of raw materials or energy while generating a benefit from the waste. It also helps companies and urban areas to save costs on taxes and expenses related to waste disposal.

Environmental benefits

One of the objectives of this symbiosis is valorising waste into raw material, increasing the energetic efficiency at the industrial scale and getting better use of natural resources to reduce their extraction.
Reducing the use of energy and water also helps avoid water shortages and decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

Social benefits

Symbiosis impacts strongly on society on a positive way. It allows cities and regions to benefit from greener ecosystems with less strain on local resources, stronger regional economies and improved territorial conservation, while reducing landfill in surrounding areas.

Challenges to scale up Industrial-Urban Symbiosis in Europe

However, some key challenges need to be solved to scale up industrial symbiosis in Europe, including:

  • Limited availability of networking opportunities for connecting across different sites and sectors
  • Lack of assessment tools to evaluate the viability of potential partnerships
  • Availability of local resources to ensure economic feasibility.


The successful implementation of industrial symbiosis also requires strong cooperation and knowledge-sharing among all stakeholders, who should share a firm commitment to sustainable development goals.

SYMSITES will address these challenges through a series of tools and guides made available to stakeholders, helping them move forward in their transition to industrial symbiosis.