The European Commission aims for a full circular economy (CE), an economy that aims to reuse all resources in 2050. CE is a promising way to increase welfare and wellbeing while decreasing environmental footprints. Industrial symbiosis, in which companies exchange residuals for resource efficiency, is essential to the circular transition. However, many companies are hesitant to implement business models for industrial symbiosis because of the various roles, stakes, opinions, and resulting uncertainties for business continuity.This dissertation supports researchers, professionals, and students in understanding and shaping circular business models for industrial symbiosis networks through collaborative modelling and simulation methods. Three theoretical perspectives, design science research, complex adaptive socio-technical systems, and circular business model innovation, shed light on designing business models for industrial symbiosis. A serious game and agent-based models were developed in multiple case studies with researchers, practitioners, and students. These were then used to design circular business models and explore their efficacy under uncertain conditions, such as various behavioural intentions of potential partners in diverse natural and societal contexts.This thesis advances business model design and experimentation by integrated simulation of social and technical aspects of industrial symbiosis. Furthermore, the research shows how simulations facilitate learning processes in designing circular business models. Ultimately, the thesis equips researchers, practitioners, and students with knowledge, tools, and methods to shape a circular economy.
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This is a repository containing an agent-based model (code, data, documents and results) of Industrial Symbiosis Network implementation. The repository is related to the publication:Lange, K.P., Korevaar, G., Nikolic, I., Herder, P.M., 2021. Actor Behaviour and Robustness of Industrial Symbiosis Networks: An Agent-Based Modelling Approach, 2020:64:4. JASSS. https://doi.org/10.18564/JASSS.4635The purpose of the model is to explore the influence of actor behaviour, combined with environment and business model design, on the survival rates of Industrial Symbiosis Networks (ISN), and the cash flows of the agents. We define an ISN to be robust, when it is able to run for 10 years, without falling apart due to leaving agents.The model simulates the implementation of local waste exchange collaborations for compost production, through the ISN implementation stages of awareness, planning, negotiation, implementation, and evaluation.One central firm plays the role of waste processor in a local composting initiative. This firm negotiates with other firms to become a supplier of their organic residual streams. The waste suppliers in the model can decide to join the initiative, or to have the waste brought to the external waste incinerator. The focal point of the model are the company-level interactions during the implementation or ending of synergies.The model consists of three types of actors, waste suppliers, processor, and incinerators. The modeled waste supplier and processor are part of the ISN. In the model these agent types negotiate and evaluate the outcomes by means of the Theory of Planned Behavior. The modeled incinerator is part of the external environment. This agent acts as the infinite sink of all waste flows, taking up op the waste that is not used in the local composting initiative.
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Industrial Symbiosis Networks (ISNs) consist of firms that exchange residual materials and energy locally, in order to gain economic, environmental and/or social advantages. In practice, ISNs regularly fail when partners leave and the recovery of residual streams ends. Regarding the current societal need for a shift towards sustainability, it is undesirable that ISNs should fail. Failures of ISNs may be caused by actor behaviour that leads to unanticipated economic losses. In this paper, we explore the effect of these behaviours on ISN robustness by using an agent-based model (ABM). The constructed model is based on insights from both literature and participatory modelling in three real-world cases. It simulates the implementation of synergies for local waste exchange and compost production. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) was used to model agent behaviour in time-dependent bilateral negotiations and synergy evaluation processes. We explored model behaviour with and without TPB logic across a range of possible TPB input variables. The simulation results show how the modelled planned behaviour affects the cash flow outcomes of the social agents and the robustness of the network. The study contributes to the theoretical development of industrial symbiosis research by providing a quantitative model of all ISN implementation stages, in which various behavioural patterns of entrepreneurs are included. It also contributes to practice by offering insights on how network dynamics and robustness outcomes are not only related to context and ISN design, but also to actor behaviour.
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