Supply chain capabilities for industrial symbiosis: Lessons from the cement industry

In the wake of unprecedented global economic expansion and a quickly increasing middle class, the current economic models jeopardize our future by causing resource depletion, excessive land use and global warming. To address this, concepts such as industrial symbiosis – where waste and byproducts of one industry are used as feedstock for another industry – are gaining traction. However, despite the growing attention and the concept’s importance for our future, how to manage supply chain related issues in this context has received rather scarce attention. Yet, firms have to deal with low and varying quality of waste and byproducts, cross-industry collaborations and a lack of transparency in the upstream supply network.

Building on six studies and one conference abstract, this research presents supply chain capabilities for key domains in the context of industrial symbiosis in the process industry: 1) sourcing, 2) environmental supplier selection, 3) setting up new symbiotic exchanges and 4) managing supplier integration to improve waste and byproduct quality. The broad supply chain perspective helps managers and academics alike to understand the challenges and the solutions.