ITC coordinates the SIMVAL project to promote industrial symbiosis in different productive sectors

The SIMVAL project, which has the support of the Valencian Innovation Agency (AVI), aims to develop a platform for industrial symbiosis in the Valencia Region in order to provide the public administration with a tool that allows it to manage in an orderly and sustainable way all actions for the exchange of resources between industries located in the Region.

The Valencian Innovation Agency (AVI) is supporting the SIMVAL project: Strategy towards a Circular Economy in the Valencia Region through a Platform that promotes Industrial Symbiosis, an initiative in which the Institute of Ceramic Technology (ITC) participates within the Complementary Actions of Promotion and Strengthening of Innovation that this organisation has set in motion.

In accordance with the action plans of the different public administrations on the road to the circular economy, one of the most significant aspects is the drive towards industrial symbiosis. Specifically, in 2015 Europe advanced a series of measures that in the next 5 years were necessary to act, including the different stages of the life cycle of products, such as design and production, consumption, waste management and use of resources contained in waste through their reintroduction into the economy and areas such as plastics, food waste, critical raw materials, construction and demolition waste, biomass waste and products with a biological base.

One of the key approaches of Circular Economy is industrial symbiosis, i.e. introducing a series of innovative collaborations between companies, through the use by one of them or a sector or sector of by-products, including energy, water, logistics and materials.

Thus, and with the previous experience of the ITC in the European project SHAREBOX in which this symbiosis model is being carried out between the companies located in the Polígono La Mina de Nules (Castellón), this ambitious project has been set in motion, which aims to implement the industrial symbiosis between productive sectors throughout the Valencia Region, in order to align with the principles of the Circular Economy and with the initiatives that mark the government entities at both regional and national as well as European level.
During 2018, information has been sought on the management of industrial use resources in the territory of the Valencia Region and thus lay the foundations for the development of the different lines of action included in SIMVAL, an initiative in which universities participate, specifically the Design Research Group and Project Management of the Department of Engineering Projects of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, research centres and technological institutes such as ITC and AIDIMME, companies such as International Synergies Ltd. (ISL) and by the public administrations will have the collaboration of the Directorate General of Climate Change and Environmental Quality of the Ministry of Agriculture, Environment, Climate Change and Rural Development. It also seeks the support of other ministries such as the Ministry of Finance and Economic Model or the Ministry of Sustainable Economy, Productive Sectors, Trade and Employment, in addition to companies as users customers of this platform, so it will have the participation of the Business Confederation of the Valencia Region (CEV), which has among its aims and powers, to promote sustainable economic development for the benefit of the general interest, through recommendations and proposals for action on socio-economic issues.

SIMVAL aims to become a single platform that acts as an umbrella and brings together both policies and initiatives of a private, public or public-private nature in the Valencia Region in terms of circular economy.