Enabling industrial symbiosis by a facilities management optimization approach Antonella Meneghetti * , Gioacchino Nardin DIEGM e Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica, Gestionale e Meccanica, University of Udine, Via delle Scienze, 208, 33100 Udine, Italy article info Article history: Received 21 December 2011 Received in revised form 22 March 2012 Accepted 4 June 2012 Available online 13 June 2012 Keywords: Industrial symbiosis Facilities management Combined heat and power District heating Renewable energy Energy design optimization model Decision support tool abstract The role of enabling industrial symbiosis can be played by a Facilities Management (FM) provider, when it embraces a district-oriented FM approach. This consists on moving from traditional solutions for single enterprises to technical solutions specifically designed for clusters of firms. As an economic actor, a FM provider naturally pursuits profitability of its services/products, and this has been highlighted by liter- ature as a necessary condition for successful evolution towards industrial symbiosis. An optimization model has been developed as a decision support tool for a FM provider when configuring energy-based kernels of industrial symbiosis. It is applied to a case study in North-Eastern Italy to analyze feasibility of a combined heat and power system with district heating serving a cluster of firms, where different services (heating and cooling) and renewable technologies are considered in system design, and addi- tional concentrating solar unit explicitly introduced as an option. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Industrial symbiosis has been defined as involving “traditionally separate industries in a collective approach to competitive advan- tage involving physical exchange of materials, energy, water, and by-products. The keys to industrial symbiosis are collaboration and the synergistic possibilities offered by geographic proximity” (Chertow, 2000). Three types of symbiotic transactions can occur: (i) utilizing waste as raw material inputs from others (by-product exchanges), (ii) sharing utilities or access to services (such as energy or waste treatment), and (iii) cooperating on issues of common interest such as emergency planning, training or sustainability planning (Chertow et al., 2008). Two stylized models of symbiosis have been proposed by Chertow (2007): the planned Eco Industrial Park (EIP) model and the self-organizing symbiosis model. The former includes a conscious effort to identify companies from different industries and locate them together so that they can share resources across and among them. In the latter, an industrial ecosystem emerges from decisions by private actors motivated to exchange resources to meet goals such as cost reduction, revenue enhancement, or busi- ness expansion. In the early stages there is no consciousness by participants of industrial symbiosis or inclusion in an industrial ecosystem, but this can develop over time. The empirical research in industrial symbiosis highlights how attempts to plan EIPs, that involve significant material and energy exchanges, have rarely come to fruition in a sustainable way (see for example Baas and Boons (2004), Chertow et al. (2008), Boons et al. (2011)). Rather, an emergent characteristic of geographically proximate firms successfully exploiting synergistic exchanges is their evolution from opportunistic business decisions. Imple- menting industrial symbiosis is likely to be a long-term process (Heeres et al., 2004) departing from realistic expectations. Gibbs and Deutz (2007) underline that as part of that realism, the EIP must be designed to allow for a gradual approach and each phase needs to be financially viable, since the most important factor in a project is its economic success, as previously underlined also by Côté and Cohen-Rosenthal (1998). If an EIP fails economically, it will contribute nothing to social and environmental benefits. The concept of kernel of symbiosis becomes crucial (Chertow, 2007). These kernels of symbiosis across firms are necessary preconditions for what sometimes become more extensive exchange networks. Heeres et al. (2004) suggest that in order to stimulate EIP development, it is important to focus on the estab- lishment of low cost, high benefit utility sharing projects and ‘‘simple’’ exchanges. Finally, when the project is well established and companies are fully aware of the benefits that are to be gained, the development can move along to more company-specific and economically challenging projects. * Corresponding author. Tel./fax: þ39 0432 558026. E-mail addresses: meneghetti@uniud.it (A. Meneghetti), gioacchino.nardin@ uniud.it (G. Nardin). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro 0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.06.002 Journal of Cleaner Production 35 (2012) 263e273