International industrial symbiosis: Cross-border management of aggregates and construction and demolition waste between Italy and Switzerland

This article describes an international industrial symbiosis located in Canton Ticino, Switzerland, and Lombardy, Italy, involving virgin aggregates and construction and demolition waste. It discusses the potential of the industrial symbiosis to manage transport strategies and its geographic extension, to reduce substantially its transport related externalities, currently equivalent to 11% of the symbiosis value. With recourse to a key informant monitoring methodology, primary and secondary sources, this article estimates the symbiosis' transport environmental impacts, external costs, and returns to distance under various scenarios. We show that intermodal transport strategies have the potential to reduce transport's carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by up to 61% and external costs by up to 81%, and to widen the industrial symbiosis' geographic extension beyond the current 50 km. We also discuss how, despite changes and disagreements in the objectives of different cross-border regional authorities to manage the international industrial symbiosis, the coordination of different mechanisms and incentives is essential for the sustainable management of this international industrial symbiosis. The aim of the article is twofold. Firstly, to highlight the importance of assessing the contribution of transport to the overall industrial symbiosis' environmental impacts, rather than consider transport and its impacts as externally given variables. And secondly, to show policy and decision makers additional methods, and inter-regional authorities coordination experiences, in order to assess impacts and manage an industrial symbiosis in more sustainable ways. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers.

Automated summary

This study discusses an international industrial symbiosis between Switzerland and Italy, focusing on managing transport strategies, reducing external costs, and expanding the geographic range. The research shows that intermodal transport strategies can significantly reduce carbon emissions and external costs, and extend the system's coverage beyond 50 kilometers.