Roadmap for Industrial Symbiosis Standardisation for Efficient Resource Sharing (RISERS) Project

The Horizon Europe Roadmap for Industrial Symbiosis Standardisation for Efficient Resource Sharing (RISERS) Project commenced in January 2024. The three-year project is tasked with developing a roadmap for standardisation to support the industry’s implementation of synergies that keep resources in productive use for longer in the energy-intensive sectors.

Industrial symbiosis is the use by one company or sector of underutilised resources* (including waste, by-products, residues, energy, water, logistics, capacity, expertise, equipment and materials that are not the primary output of the production process) from another, with the result of keeping resources in productive use for longer.

Despite proven benefits, industrial symbiosis is still not a widely adopted practice for building future-proof industries: opportunities lie often outside one’s own sector and can require the involvement of many stakeholders. To build win-win cases and incentivise industrial symbiosis, industries and policymakers need a robust framework applicable to diverse industrial settings to drive mainstream take-up of industrial symbiosis.

A roadmap should ensure that:

• terms and principles pertaining to industrial symbiosis are commonly understood among stakeholders;
• resources are interchangeable among industries and industry sectors;
• the systems, practices and processes are compatible, interoperable and comply with regulatory requirements;
• the relevant data and information formats and technical solutions are available, and
• R&I results are integrated.

The European-funded RISERS Project addresses these challenges by developing a roadmap that defines areas and directions while proposing actions where standards are needed to advance industrial symbiosis, with a focus on priority resources and synergies demonstrating the highest symbiotic potential for Europe.

Key activities of the RISERS project involve:

• Identification of priority synergies between industries and sectors together with resources most relevant for industrial symbiosis;
• Strengthening the links between R&I and standardisation to valorise and integrate research R&I results into industrial symbiosis standardisation processes;
• Cooperation with policymakers to develop policy frameworks in support of industrial symbiosis and engagement with standardisation experts to develop a Standardisation Roadmap for boosting industrial symbiosis impact complemented with guidelines for technical committees to address industrial symbiosis in standardisation processes.

The project capitalises on the Workshop Agreement (CWA 17354) ‘Industrial Symbiosis: Core Elements and Implementation Approaches’ published by the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN). It provides a consensus on the core elements of industrial symbiosis to enable its identification and on good practice implementation approaches across Europe and beyond.