Targeting and Optimisation of Industrial and Urban Symbiosis for Circular Economy

Abstract One way of simultaneously minimising the use of fresh resources and pollution reduction is the practice of industrial and urban symbiosis, implementing Circular Economy. In the current work, it has been shown that the circularity rate alone is not a sufficient criterion to achieve resource and footprint minimisation. It is necessary to evaluate the cost and the footprints in a combined way. The formulated conceptual model allows the evaluation of the trends of the total cost, water and Greenhouse gas footprints. The provided case study clearly demonstrates the usefulness of the model in evaluating the trade-offs between the considered process characteristics, showing a 10 % difference between the optimal circularity rates for Water footprint minimisation and cost minimisation.