Hubs4Circularity are helping Europe shift to circular industrial-urban ecosystems

To transition to a sustainable, net-zero society, we need to deal with our waste – both in our cities and in our industries. Hubs4Circularity will help Europe shift to circular industrial-urban ecosystems, making both our society and our economy more resilient.

More materials are being used than ever, more waste is being generated, and cities worldwide are producing up to 50 per cent of global solid waste. It’s evident that to transition to a sustainable, net-zero society, we need to deal with our waste – both in our cities and in our industries.

In Europe, on average, less than 12 per cent of resources come from recycled products and recovered materials. The bloc’s reliance on imported raw materials (like lithium, vital to manufacture batteries) contrasts with the current landscape of geopolitical tensions and disrupted supply chains. In March 2023, the European Commission  signalled that closing this gap is a priority, announcing the new Critical Raw Materials Act (part of the broader Green Deal Industrial Plan).

The proposed Act is not without controversies, as it aims to cover 10 per cent of its demand for strategic raw materials through accelerated mining projects with unclear consequences for environmental protection laws. On the other hand, it undoubtedly highlights the importance of recovering and recycling these materials.

Hubs4Circularity: advancing industrial-urban symbiosis at regional scale

Part of Europe’s strategy to advance circularity and reduce waste, specifically in process industries, is to scale up “Hubs4Circularity”, or regional ecosystems for full-scale industrial-urban symbiosis and circular economy.

“Imagine a site where you have a city, surrounding land, and industries” says Maria Loloni, Industrial Symbiosis and Maritime Lead at EIT Climate-KIC. “The Hubs4Circularity concept supports that area to transition to a more circular, just, net-zero emission system. You can see it from both ways: helping the industrial parks in that region to lower their resource dependency and carbon footprint while benefitting the surrounding urban environment; or supporting cities and regions with an advanced industrial economy to use that as an opportunity to improve the quality of life of its citizens. That’s why it’s called a symbiosis.”

The two key concepts here are industrial symbiosis, which looks at how industries close to one another can re-use respective waste or by‐products as raw materials, and industrial-urban symbiosis, which extends this process to urban areas, for example by re-using industrial waste heat for district heating, or vice-versa, municipal waste for industrial production.

Hubs4Circularity are anchored in this local ecosystem and aim to bring these concepts at regional scale. The Commission estimates that a Hub is able to recover up to 80 per cent of energy used, save up to 55 per cent in primary energy as well as 40 per cent freshwater, and re-use up to 100 per cent of materials.

Examples of operational Hubs4Circularity are scattered across Europe, from the more mature ones (Green City Lathi in Finland, Kalundborg Symbiosis in Denmark, Smart Delta Resources in the Netherlands) to earlier-stage projects (AshCycle, Symsites and WaterProof). 

“Kalundborg is the oldest of Europe’s industrial symbiosis sites, it was started in 1972” says Maria. “It’s one of the most advanced examples we have, and started as a ‘self-organised’ project. There was this cluster of industries and businesses that needed raw materials, and there were economic difficulties at the time. So they checked if one industry could use what was waste from the other, they created pipelines to connect with each other, and recently, they also started feeding back some of these to the city of Kalundborg nearby, for example waste heat.”

The Kalundborg site estimates that it saves, every year, 4 million m3 of groundwater and 586 thousand tonnes of CO2, as well as recycling 62 thousand tonnes of residual materials. The site has achieved a reduction of 80 per cent in its CO2 emissions since 2015, and its local energy supply is now fully carbon neutral.

What qualifies as a Hubs4Circularity site?

There are several such ‘hot spots’ in Europe’s traditional industrial areas, such as West Germany, the Netherlands, or Belgium.

“There are many of these around ports, too” adds Maria, “because ports host a lot of businesses. Take Rotterdam, for example. What they plan to do there is re-use waste heat from the industries located in the port, and channel it through pipelines to the city of Hague nearby.”

There are conditions to identify these ‘hot spots’ for industrial symbiosis. The number one factor is a range of different industries, in order to exchange waste (the same type of industry would have the same waste, of course). Second and equally important, these businesses need to be in proximity, up to 30 or 50 kilometres, in order to transfer materials efficiently. Industries scattered further from each other would cancel out the economic case, as material transfer relies on costly infrastructure such as underground pipelines . Finally, from a purely technical perspective, they need to determine whether one industry can actually use the waste of another or not.

For industrial-urban symbiosis, which can be considered a step further, material exchanges are extended to include a nearby city – for example, re-using waste water from the industries for urban purposes, and vice-versa.

“This adds a policy and educational perspective” says Maria. “Cities and regions need to put in place the right initiatives to transform their industry, but they also need to support and educate citizens, for example, to sort out their waste properly so the industry can re-use it. It’s important to have these two elements.”

Levers of change: how to activate different parts of society and bring about systemic transformation

Despite these existing ‘demonstration’ sites, both industrial symbiosis and industrial-urban symbiosis can be considered to be in their early stages. That’s why Horizon Europe, the Commission’s research and innovation programme, plans to mobilise up to €200 million to deploy ten additional Hubs4Circularity across the EU, as well as to support existing ones.

EIT Climate-KIC is part of one such EU-funded project, the Hubs4Circularity Community of Practice, a network of public and private stakeholders from industries, regions, and cities, that is helping facilitate the building, scaling up and replicating of ecosystems of industrial and industrial-urban symbiosis, as well as wider circular economy initiatives.

Because many of the enabling conditions needed to develop a Hub revolve around technology, we tend to overlook other fundamental aspects. Policy, skills and education are some of these, and for Europe to increase its uptake of industrial-urban symbiosis, widespread awareness of its benefits are needed, alongside more trainings and participatory policymaking processes.

“We’re looking at an ecosystem” says Maria, “and in an ecosystem, you have different, interconnected points where you can intervene to bring about transformation – what we call ‘levers of change’. Some of these are technology-based, of course: you need the right technologies to be mature, and you need to match those who need the technologies with those who develop them. Some others are so-called ‘non-technological barriers’. Policy needs to be supportive, people need to have the right skills and easy access to trainings, appropriate business models must be in place, and so on.”

The Hubs4Circularity Community of Practice is creating a comprehensive map of this system, with the goal of helping policy, industries and practitioners to ‘pull’ the right levers and accelerate transformation. Knowledge, tools, models, and solutions are available to the Community of Practice through a knowledge platform.

In addition, as part of the project, expert groups and advisory panels will analyse challenges and solutions as experienced by practitioners, exchange best practices, provide policy recommendations, and develop metrics to assess the maturity of regional initiatives, in collaboration with some of the Hubs4Circularity existing sites. 

Helping people on the ground create innovation

“One issue we have right now in Europe is that companies that are ideal candidates to implement industrial symbiosis are a bit lost” says Maria. “Often, they might not know the exact composition of their waste, or who can use it. Secondly, they don’t know all the technologies available out there, or they might be confused about the specifics of waste legislation across EU countries”

That means that the figure of the ‘facilitator’, a sort of intermediary (who can be a company expert, a government agency officer, or a Hub manager), is increasingly relevant. “Imagine this entity who says OK, here’s 20 companies in an industrial park, what kind of waste does each one of them have, and how could we possibly exchange these?” says Maria. “And then they need to search, for example, if waste from a cement factory can be used by a specific chemical plant nearby, what tools and technologies can help do this, and then they need to match these actors, like ‘you have this waste, I know someone who is looking for this waste – meet each other and try to see if you can make it happen’”.

To kickstart on-the-ground innovation, the Hubs4Circularity Community of Practice is supporting experts and practitioners to learn from each other and put the pieces together. This also includes those who might be interested in the concept but don’t know yet how to start.

“There is already so much out there, and people don’t necessarily know where to find it” says Maria. “The knowledge platform is meant to bring all these resources – data, trainings, assessment tools, performance indicators, guidelines, technology solutions – in one place, like a one-stop-shop.

That’s one part. Then you have a range of active functions, for example a forum exchange area, matchmaking services, funding streams. Let me give an example: let’s say there’s a little funding available for an industrial symbiosis project, whether from EU or national funds. Right now, this might be scattered across different websites and resources, but what if somebody filters this information, and brings it in one place together with trainings and other data?”

The Hubs4Circularity Community of Practice builds on previous Horizon 2020 and EIT Climate-KIC projects, including SCALER (that focused on industrial symbiosis) and award-winning LOOP-Ports (addressing the transition to a circular economy in the port sector). The partners behind the project are now bringing all this wealth of knowledge to the next level.

You can learn more about the Hubs4Circularity Community of Practice and join the community here: h4c-community.eu