Carbon reduction from sustainable consumption of waste resources: An optimal model for collaboration in an industrial symbiotic network

Inter-firm collaboration is an effective way to achieve carbon emission reduction by sustainable consumption of waste resources. To find out how to bring collaborative effects to bear upon emission reduction for multiple-firm networks, industrial symbiosis is taken as a tool for inter-firm cooperation on carbon emission reduction (CER). The input-output matrix is built to identify the carbon footprint within the flows among the industrial firms in a symbiotic network. Fuzzy goals programming is employed to convert the parameter of amount of carbon emissions to the degree of satisfaction, which avoids the problem whereby the carbon emissions of different industrial firms are not comparable across different demographics. An optimisation model is then constructed with the constraint of both product demand and CER cost. Finally, there is a scenario simulation of CER cooperation from perspective of industrial symbiosis for the iron and steel industry. It provides empirical experience from which industrial firms can implement CER cooperation through industrial symbiosis.