Key-drivers Identification for Industrial Symbiosis Entailing Circular Economy Transition in Europe

The complexity of implementing circular economy in the industrial symbiosis is here approached from a systems’ perspective where the possibility to disaggregate the European action plan according to the different regions. This study entails a systematic analysis of the academic and grey literature to recognize the drivers that shape the supply chains behaviour in the Industrial innovation cluster combined with the corroboration of a European expert panel and two case studies analysis in France to disentangle how the drivers shape circular economy transition. The drivers are behavioural patterns offering to improve our understanding of the environmental and socioeconomic dimension of industrial symbiosis in urban ecosystems. The 12 drivers for a circular economy transition, which will be mentioned throughout the text, have been divided in five categories: environmental, economic, social, institutional and organizational. We selected Bazancourt-Pomacle biorefinery and the PET end of life value chain as the outstanding cases that enable the territorial analysis of the seven key-drivers found out. Overall, the seven key-drivers for the CE transition in industrial symbiosis in Europe validated through a Panel of experts are Innovation; Competition; Value-added; Wages; Government revenue; Taxation; incentives and subsidiary policies and; Skills upgradability. The originality of this study stands on the systemic approach offered when identifying the causal drivers that shape circular economy transition in the industrial symbiosis, and the empirical corroboration efforts applied. Industrial symbiosis entails a strategic policy representing a powerful catalyst for transition to circular economy.