A new Nordic network is established

The founding members from 4 nordic countries span industry clusters, academia and Industrial Park facilitators from Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

The network is taking a step beyond Industrial Symbiosis by consciously including the Urban agenda into a more holistic approach. This will increase the possibilities for resource exchange in cases where there may not be a direct business partner available to utilize available side streams, such as heat, water or material side streams.

Digipolis

Digipolis from Finland is an industry cluster located in Finnish Lapland working with woodbased materials, mineral mining and metals processing mainly.

Digipolis has a long track record on Industrial symbiosis and is now playing a key part in the implementation of the Circular Economy effort by Sitra, the Finnish national innovation agency.

Kalundborg Symbiosis

Kalundborg and the Kalundborg Symbiosis is probably the best known case of industrial symbiosis in the world. The industrial park has been implementing the principles of symbiosis and collaboration since 1961 and been continuously evolving. They are known for their excellent collaboration with regional authorities and their facilitation for increased symbiosis activity beyond the boundaries of the industrial park. This is mainly coordinated through the Symbiosis Centre Denmark.

The University of Linköping

The University of Linköping is the most renowned academic environment on industrial symbiosis in the Nordic sphere. Their long track-record stretches  back over 25 years and has resulted in rock solid competences and experience. An ideal partner for capacity building and other education programmes.

The Eyde Cluster

The Eyde Cluster is a process industry cluster from southern Norway and consists of global companies in the field of Non-Ferrous metals and the supporting ecosystem around that type of industry, including academia, research institutes, business incubators and the education sector. Eyde is working towards a sustainable process industry through its focus on resource efficiency via circular economy business models and materials research.

Dialogue 

Together with Nordregio, the Nordic institute for societal research, this group has held a dialogue over the past 1.5 years to establish a common understanding for the regional diversities in the Nordic area and the inherent challenges and opportunities.

Based on the culturally varied approaches and diverse strategic approaches nationally towards circular economy and industrial symbiosis, there is now a diversity of approaches that allows the network the access to a range of solutions. This in turn allows for comparative studies and joint Nordic benchmarking exercises as the common “Scandinavian model” is a harmonized platform for understanding, adaptation and implementation across the national borders.

International experts

The network will be primarily focused on macro regional collaboration as it is based on practitioners and aimed at practitioners. The Nordic organization allows at the same time for the regions access to international experts with a deep understanding from various viewpoints to be implemented into regional projects.

The network is an open collaboration platform for practitioners and can be contacted through its national contact points.

For more information see this page