Analyzing the Critical Success Factors for Industrial Symbiosis—A Chinese Perspective

Due to globalization and industrialization, several industrial developments have been evident, which increases the global revenue significantly in recent years. Meanwhile, such increasing industrial activities prints many negative impacts on the environment through resources scavenging, an increase in waste, pollution and so on. Several strategies have been introduced to reduce these negative characteristics of industrial operations without comprising in production quantities. Industrial symbiosis is one such strategy that assists the industries in the industrial parks to engage in eco-efficient operations. Despite its key advantages, very limited studies exist in the developing context, especially with China industries. Though there are several attempts made in industrial symbiosis for its effective implementation, but no previous study details the success factors of implementation of industrial symbiosis even with the Chinese context. Addressing this gap, this study identified the common success factors for industrial symbiosis and analyzed the effective factors within the Chinese industrial context. The analytical hierarchy process has been adapted for this analysis, in which the China industrial eco park design managers are considered as case decision-makers. The results revealed that among considered 12 factors, technological factors are the key success factor for the effective implementation of industrial symbiosis in the Chinese context. With the findings, this study is having both scientific and societal contributions toward the implementation of industrial symbiosis in the Chinese context. Further, the future scope for research in addition to limitations has been presented.