Business solutions for energy cooperation

Business models

“Industrial symbiosis (IS) is a collaborative approach concerning physical exchange of materials, energy, and services among different companies” ([1]). The European Commission ([2]) explicitly recommended the fostering on IS practices to boost production efficiency and resource productivity, underlying their sustainability-related advantages – i.e. environmental, economic, and social advantages ([3]; [4]).

As such, Business Models (BMs) implementing industrial symbiosis principles are considered as BMs for sustainability, and they are mainly classified under the Bocken et al. ([5])’s classification of technical grouping.

The business model’s archetypes within the technical grouping are three:

• 1. Maximise material and energy efficiency, is defined as “do more with fewer resources, generating less waste, emission and pollution”
• 2. Create value from waste, is defined as “turning waste stream into useful and valuable input”
• 3. Substitute with renewables and natural resources, is defined as addressing resource constraints associated with non-renewable resources and current production systems.