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.
There are three volumes in this body of work. In volume one, we lay the foundation for a general theory of organizing. We propose that organizing is a continuous process of ongoing mutual or reciprocal influence between objects (e.g., human actors) in a field, whereby a field is infinite and connects all the objects in it much like electromagnetic fields influence atomic and molecular charged objects or gravity fields influence inanimate objects with mass such as planets and stars. We use field theory to build what we now call the Network Field Model. In this model, human actors are modeled as pointlike objects in the field. Influence between and investments in these point-like human objects are explained as energy exchanges (potential and kinetic) which can be described in terms of three different types of capital: financial (assets), human capital (the individual) and social (two or more humans in a network). This model is predicated on a field theoretical understanding about the world we live in. We use historical and contemporaneous examples of human activity and describe them in terms of the model. In volume two, we demonstrate how to apply the model. In volume 3, we use experimental data to prove the reliability of the model. These three volumes will persistently challenge the reader’s understanding of time, position and what it means to be part of an infinite field. http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99709
Eco-innovations that reduce carbon emissions help advance sustainability transitions in tourism. This article examines the analytical potential of actor-network theory (ANT) to study eco-innovation. ANT assumes that reality consists of actor-networks made of human and non-human elements that perform actors as network effects. We argue that, in a time when climate change is the simultaneous product and producer of human actions, eco-innovation is better understood when research gives the human and non-human elements that perform eco-innovations equal analytical treatment. We therefore develop an ANT-inspired framework, which we apply in a case study to investigate the development of a specific eco-innovation: CARMACAL, a web-based carbon management application in the Dutch travel industry. We find that technological novelty alone is insufficient to instigate transition. CARMACAL affords multiple new practices with opposite implications for socio-economic and environmental sustainability. The practices triggering most industry support are least effective in addressing tourism's climate impacts and vice versa. Examining eco-innovation through ANT helps us put eco-innovation in a different light. Seemingly contradictory practices may be mutually supportive: their individual strengths and weaknesses may help prevent the failure of eco-innovations. This new possibility opens the way for concerted policies strengthening the contribution of eco-innovations to sustainability transitions.
LINK
