ENEA has published the free volume " Technical standards for industrial symbiosis " which collects voluntary technical standards for companies and organizations in the implementation of industrial symbiosis, the process in which by-products and waste from some companies become raw materials for others.The volume was produced within the SUN network (Symbiosis Users Network), the first Italian reference network for industrial symbiosis that brings together 40 partners including universities, institutions, research bodies, companies and technological networks.
In particular, a SUN working group has worked to provide a broad and organic overview of existing standards and ongoing standardization initiatives , also exploring national and international experiences. The volume provides technical references to implement sustainable business models such as industrial symbiosis , in order to enable companies to deal with challenges and opportunities related to environmental, social, economic and governance sustainability.
“Industrial symbiosis is able to create a collaborative mechanism of mutual benefit , whose benefits are not limited to the organizations directly involved, but also extend to the territorial level, where shared resources, materials, energy and by-products are valorized rather than wasted, improving traceability, reliability, integration of innovative solutions in production processes and overall efficiency, while reducing waste” , explained Tiziana Beltrani, ENEA researcher at the Laboratory of Tools for Sustainability and Circularity of Production Systems and coordinator of the working group that developed these guidelines, together with Silvia Sbaffoni (ENEA), Carlo Brondi (Cnr) and Eleonora Perotto (Politecnico di Milano).
Standards represent a sort of “common language” to communicate, transfer and share resources and modus operandi, to facilitate the monitoring and measurement of the impact of activities and to improve the management of resource flows, thanks to better collaboration between companies.
These themes are in line with policies to address climate change and resource scarcity, such as the Green Deal and the Circular Economy Action Plan of the European Commission, and aim to deepen the role of technical regulations in promoting the transition to a more circular and sustainable economy. (Source: https://www.media.enea.it/ )