EREK Workshop – Improving resource efficiency through industrial symbiosis – Opportunities for SMEs

Industrial symbiosis is an industrial ecosystem where unused or residual resources of one company are used by another. This results in mutual economic, social and environmental benefits. Industrial symbiosis promotes cross-sectoral collaboration and supports local and regional growth. It also creates jobs and fosters industrial clusters that share a mutual interest in resource efficiency and circular economy.

This event, organised by the European Resource Efficiency Knowledge Centre – EREK and Motiva, seeks to answer questions such as: What are the key drivers for success in industrial symbiosis and how to resolve possible barriers? What can we learn from each other to succeed even better? What’s in it for businesses and especially SMEs?

The workshop will be interactive and will focus on insights gained from experiences with promoting industrial symbiosis. It will connect business intermediaries from the public and private sector, as well as policymakers with responsibilities for resource efficiency, industrial symbiosis, and circular economy. The objectives of the workshop are:

• To enable networking among business support intermediaries related to industrial symbiosis, resource efficiency, and circular economy activities,
• To raise awareness among Finnish business support intermediaries and SMEs from various sectors with regards to industrial symbiosis and resource efficiency initiatives and measures,
• Share knowledge and experience in implementing programmes related to industrial symbiosis and achieving resource- and associated financial savings in SMEs.

Aside from the presentations, you will have the chance to meet our resource efficiency experts for a personalized coaching session in order to get familiarized with the EREK tools.

The workshop is featured as a side event to the World Circular Economy Forum 2019.