Across Europe, industries are facing important challenges: reducing waste, improving resource efficiency, lowering environmental impact, and creating more sustainable business models. At the same time, many companies still struggle to identify practical solutions and opportunities for collaboration. The Industrial Symbiosis Observatory was created to support this transition.
The Observatory is an open online space designed to share knowledge, connect actors, and promote collaboration around Industrial Symbiosis. It brings together information, experiences, insights, and opportunities to help companies, organisations, researchers, and policy makers better understand how Industrial Symbiosis can support a more circular and sustainable economy.
What is Industrial Symbiosis?
Industrial Symbiosis is a collaborative approach where companies work together to exchange resources, materials, energy, water, knowledge, or by-products.
In a traditional linear economy, many industrial outputs become waste. In Industrial Symbiosis, these outputs can become valuable resources for another company or sector. This creates environmental, economic, and social benefits at the same time.
Industrial Symbiosis helps companies reduce waste and emissions, improve resource efficiency, reduce production costs, create new business opportunities, and strengthen cooperation between industries.
The concept is inspired by natural ecosystems, where nothing is wasted and every resource can generate new value.
How the Observatory was born
The Observatory was developed within the framework of the INSET Project — Industrial Symbiosis for Enterprises and Training.
INSET is a European Erasmus+ project created to support the real implementation of Industrial Symbiosis through training, awareness raising, digital tools, and cooperation between different actors. The project brings together universities, research centres, innovation hubs, companies, and vocational education organisations from different European countries.
One of the main objectives of INSET is the creation of an open access Industrial Symbiosis Observatory where users can access relevant information, resources, training materials, legislation, initiatives, and good practices related to Industrial Symbiosis.
The Observatory was created to answer an important need identified during the project: many organisations are interested in Industrial Symbiosis, but opportunities often remain invisible because companies lack knowledge, connections, or access to practical information.
The Observatory aims to make this ecosystem more visible, understandable, and accessible.
The objectives of the Observatory
The Industrial Symbiosis Observatory has four main goals.
1. Disseminating knowledge: The Observatory helps users understand what Industrial Symbiosis is and why it matters. It provides articles, insights, case studies, trends, and educational content focused on circular economy and industrial collaboration. The goal is to make Industrial Symbiosis easier to understand and more accessible for companies and organisations that are approaching the topic for the first time.
2. Creating connections: Industrial Symbiosis is based on collaboration. The Observatory helps create connections between companies, innovation actors, researchers, training organisations, and policy makers working on sustainability and circular economy initiatives across Europe. Through projects, examples, mappings, and shared experiences, the platform supports the creation of a stronger Industrial Symbiosis community.
3. Mapping opportunities: The Observatory highlights emerging opportunities linked to Industrial Symbiosis, such as underused industrial resources, potential synergies between sectors, circular business models, innovative industrial collaborations, and European policies and trends. The platform helps organisations explore how Industrial Symbiosis can become a practical opportunity for innovation and competitiveness.
4. Supporting future collaboration tools: The Observatory is also designed as a foundation for future matchmaking and collaboration initiatives. By building awareness, knowledge, and trust, the platform prepares organisations for more operational Industrial Symbiosis solutions and collaborative tools that can support the exchange of secondary resources and industrial cooperation.
How the Observatory is structured
The Industrial Symbiosis Observatory is organised as an open digital platform designed to make knowledge, people, and opportunities connected and accessible. The website is structured into five main sections, each supporting a different aspect of the Industrial Symbiosis ecosystem.
- Observatory: This section represents the core of the platform. It provides insights related to Industrial Symbiosis, circular economy, sustainability, and industrial collaboration. It aims to support awareness and understanding of Industrial Symbiosis by collecting knowledge, practical perspectives, and information that can help organisations explore new circular opportunities and collaborative models.
- Partners & People: Industrial Symbiosis is built on collaboration between organisations, experts, companies, researchers, and innovation actors. This section highlights the community behind the Observatory, presenting the organisations, professionals, and stakeholders contributing to the development of Industrial Symbiosis initiatives and activities across Europe. It helps create visibility for the ecosystem of actors involved in promoting sustainability, innovation, and industrial cooperation.
- Topics: this section organises the main themes connected to Industrial Symbiosis and the circular transition. Users can explore different thematic areas related to sustainability, industrial ecosystems, circular economy, resource efficiency, innovation, training, and emerging industrial trends. This structure allows visitors to navigate the platform according to their interests and discover content linked to specific challenges and opportunities.
- News: this section collects updates, articles, events, project developments, and recent initiatives related to Industrial Symbiosis and the activities of the Observatory. Its objective is to keep the community informed about ongoing developments, European projects, emerging practices, and new opportunities connected to sustainable industrial collaboration.
- Contact: this section allows users, organisations, and stakeholders to connect with the Observatory team. It provides a direct channel for communication, collaboration proposals, networking opportunities, and information requests, supporting the creation of a growing European community interested in Industrial Symbiosis and circular industrial innovation.
A European space for collaboration
The Industrial Symbiosis Observatory is more than a website.
It is a growing European space where knowledge, innovation, and collaboration can support the transition towards more sustainable industrial systems.
By sharing experiences and creating connections, the Observatory contributes to building a future where industrial growth and environmental sustainability can progress together.
Industrial Symbiosis does not happen in isolation. It happens when companies, organisations, and people work together to transform challenges into shared opportunities.