Full length article
Expanding roles for the Swedish waste management sector in inter-organizational resource management

In loving memory of our wonderful colleague, teacher, and friend: Leo Baas 07.05.1946–20.11.2016.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.04.007Get rights and content

Highlights

  • There are many barriers to implementing symbiotic and inter-organizational resource initiatives.

  • Waste management organizations are supplying services to ease these barriers.

  • Business models around innovation parks and source waste reduction are developing.

  • Long term partnerships are important for enabling more significant transitions.

  • Balancing market mechanisms is key for facilitators from waste management.

Abstract

Several waste management (WM) professionals see an ongoing shift in the focus of the industry, from that of a transport and treatment sector to that of a more integrated sustainable service provision and material production sector. To further develop such transitional ambitions, WM organizations are increasingly looking toward inter-organizational resource network concepts (such as the circular economy and industrial symbiosis) as models of how they would like to create new value together with their customers and partners.

This article aims to take a step in addressing uncertainties behind such transitions by analyzing barriers for inter-organizational resource management and in turn uncovering some potential opportunities and risks of novel offerings from the WM sector. Obstacles for developing innovative inter-organizational resource networks have been identified based on studies of implementing industrial symbiosis networks. Subsequently, managing executives from Swedish private and public WM organizations were interviewed regarding the sector’s capacity to overcome such barriers – opportunities and risks of providing new resource management services – and how their organizations might approach the role of actively facilitating more resource efficient regions.

Eco-Industrial park management and contracting out holistic resource management are some areas in which the respondents see WM organizations offering new services. In relation to such approaches, various risks (e.g. being cut out of investment benefits, or unstable supply) and opportunities (e.g. new markets and enhanced sustainability profiles) were identified. Additionally, it was seen that WM companies would need to make substantial changes to their business approach, becoming less dependent on flows of mixed materials for example, if they are to become even more central value chain actors. To strengthen such approaches, it was seen that the sector will need to find methods to strategically build strong, long term partnerships, expand upon and take advantage of available knowledge resources (i.e. best practice technologies and regional material flows), and explore new business models (i.e. stockpiling, park management, or waste minimization). Additionally, working with sector representatives to argue for a more balanced market conditions next to primary production should assist the viability of new offerings in the wider market.

Introduction

Many economies around the world have historically based their growth on inexpensive and plentiful natural resources. In the context of abundance, applying a linear ‘take, make, waste’ approach to fulfilling society’s needs and wants has been practical to a degree. However, it is evident that this approach to the use of resources in our economies is not sustainable in the long term (Dobbs et al., 2013, EC Environment, 2011, Lacy and Rutqvist, 2015). Global trends such as increasing world population, growing consumer affluence, resource scarcity, and environmental pressures have public and private actors calling for a transformation away from traditional linear economies (Allwood et al., 2010, EC Environment, 2011, Genovese et al., 2015, McKinsey Global Institute, 2011, OECD, 2011).

In addition to such drivers, benefits to economies and individual organizations can be realized through increased inter-organizational resource efficiency. Societal benefits such as increased resource security, improved macro economies, and increased employment are among highlighted benefits (Chertow and Lombardi, 2005, European Commission, 2011, Lombardi and Laybourn, 2006, Wijkman and Skånberg, 2015, Zhu et al., 2007). A recent Club of Rome report estimates that taking political and industrial action supporting material efficiency could raise the Swedish GDP by more than 2% and create an additional 50,000 jobs in the country (Wijkman and Skånberg, 2015). Potential benefits for companies working with resource efficiency include reduced resource costs, reduced supply risks, improved goodwill, increased competitiveness, and perhaps access to new market segments (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2012, Lacy and Rutqvist, 2015, Roy and Cheruvu, 2010). While seen as a major player in enabling a resource transformation on a macro scale, the waste management (WM) sector stands to gain new business opportunities through radically developing their approach to resource management.

As defined by the EU, the WM sector performs “the collection, transport, recovery and disposal of waste, including the supervision of such operations and the after-care of disposal sites, including actions taken as a dealer or broker”(European Commission, 2008). Acting as such, this sector has for many decades been an important partner to our production and consumption systems, actively working toward the safe and effective treatment and use of waste resources from society. The sector has evolved through the years, expanding from regulation driven end-of-pipe solutions such as landfilling and sanitation to include other high value operations such as material recycling, and energy recovery (Singh et al., 2014). Today, many see the WM sector as a key player in realizing the pressing societal drive for more resource efficient and circular regions (Accenture, 2014, EEA, 2014, Lacy and Rutqvist, 2015).

Most organizations in the WM sector are structured to solve ‘the waste problem’, giving inadequate attention to the wider systems and value chains within which they are embedded (Singh et al., 2014). In some cases, WM companies can be seen as hindrances to innovative inter-organizational resource efficiency measures. Some of their traditional ‘low value’ activities such as landfilling, mixed recovery, and energy recovery can be considered as ‘lock-ins’ to lower stages of the waste hierarchy, where ineffective pathways for materials are kept despite potential for realizing more value through innovative alternative value chains (Corvellec et al., 2013). However, recently in Europe and elsewhere, actors in the WM sector have been rethinking and restructuring their traditional business approaches toward that of innovative systems developers and broader value chain managers. This can be seen in the sector’s adoption of the concepts of the circular economy (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2012), cradle-to-cradle (McDonough and Braungart, 2010), and industrial symbiosis (Chertow, 2000). The sector faces demanding challenges in developing approaches to realize these aspirations as a portfolio of valuable business offerings. These challenges range from developing new business models that are less dependent on material mass flows to identifying what role a WM organization can play as a core inter-organizational manager.

To become more resource efficient, our economies will require new, non-linear and high value, approaches to resource management. This article seeks to identify and evaluate novel value creation approaches for WM organizations aspiring to actively assist in innovative inter-organizational resource management.

Toward this aim, this article addresses the following questions:

  • 1)

    How can WM organizations assist in overcoming obstacles to innovative inter-organizational resource management?

  • 2)

    What are the risks and opportunities of developing these activities for WM organizations?

  • 3)

    How are Swedish WM organizations strategically and practically working toward progressive resource management visions?

Section snippets

Literature review

Industrial Symbiosis has been chosen as a representative proxy for innovative inter-organizational resource management in this article’s survey of obstacles. Industrial symbiosis was chosen given its array of activities around inter-organizational resource management, as well as its relatively large canon of literature regarding the obstacles to the facilitation and implementation of industrial symbiosis. The expanded background section of this article builds upon a literature review performed

Background

Before entering the results of the expert interviews, this section outlines some of the underpinning and contextual information for the specific study. To begin, background information regarding the sector of focus (WM in Sweden) is given. This is followed by a short introduction to the concept of industrial symbiosis and a summary of the barriers to industrial symbiosis identified via literature review.

Results

In this section the results of the interviews with executives from public and private WM organizations in Sweden are presented. These results show that leaders in the Swedish WM industry see many potentials for the sector to overcome identified barriers to industrial symbiosis. Their views on risks and opportunities of performing such activities are presented along with current initiatives of their respective organizations.

Discussion

By surveying the main barriers to inter-organizational resource management initiatives, based on industrial symbiosis concepts, this study highlights what may seem to be self-evident: the Swedish WM sector can and does perform many of the activities required for realizing more effective inter-organizational resource management. However, a shift is underway regarding the sector’s ambition, and perhaps the future role of the sector in Sweden (See Appendix A). Many Swedish WM organizations have

Conclusions

This article began by summarizing the main barriers to improving inter-organizational resource management through industrial symbiosis. The Swedish WM sector is already supplying services and technologies to ease and in some instances overcome many of these barriers. However, there are certain risks, such as supply and investment risks, in aiming to take a larger role in inter-organizational resource management. At the same time, the opportunities are substantial, such as staying ahead of

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance and insightful information provided by the management interviewees from NSR AB, Stena Recycling Sweden, Tekniska verken i Linköping AB, and Ragn-Sells AB. Many thanks to Matilda Nilsson and Sara Baumgarten for their consultation over the past year in relation to their master’s thesis work (Nilsson and Baumgarten, 2014). Their work was key in setting up the background section on barriers. This report has in part been financed by the Ragnar

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