The Future of Work Podcast

-Hello and welcome back to the Future of Work podcast.

I'm Sophy Fisher.

There's a lot of discussion

about the potential of the circular economy,

what it might do to improve the environment,

reduce the use of natural resources,

and hopefully provide a growing number of decent jobs.

One emerging aspect

of the circular economy is industrial symbiosis.

Symbiosis is a term

that's more commonly applied to two living things

coexisting in ways that benefit, harm, or indeed have no effect on each other.

As the circular economy grows,

it's also being applied to man-made economic processes.

What is the potential of industrial symbiosis,

and what effect might it have on the world of work?

Well, luckily,

I have with me today somebody who can answer these questions,

and that is Sabrina de Gobbi.

She is a Senior economist at the ILO,

and she is also the editor and contributor to a new book on industrial symbiosis.

Sabrina, welcome.

Thank you very much for joining us.

-Thank you for having me here, Sophy.

-Let me start.

I gave just a little thumbnail explanation

of what industrial symbiosis might be, but you're the expert.

Why don't you give us a definition and perhaps an example?

-Yes, sure.

Actually, you gave a very nice introduction

referring to a natural ecosystem and the way organisms interact

in a natural ecosystem.

With industrial symbiosis, it's similar.

Essentially, enterprises are meant to behave

as organisms in an ecosystem, so with interactions

that are mutually beneficial for enterprises involved.

In an industrial symbiosis network, you have a minimum of two companies

interacting or exchanging goods.

I would say waste and by-products in the definition

that I use.

The definition that I use is a simple one,

and it is the waste and by-products of one company become inputs

for the production of another company.

Essentially, you have recycling

of materials from a company to another company.

-Right.

Can you think of a specific industry or specific example?

-Yes, I can give an example, the Elfin site from Colombia.

It's easy, straightforward.

Essentially, here there are three companies.

Two are flower exporting companies,

and the third one is a plastics manufacturer.

The two flower exporting companies give the plastics manufacturer

dismissed plastic boards from their greenhouses,

and the plastics manufacturer

returns brand new made plastic boards to one company,

and it pays the corresponding price to the other company.

In this case, you have benefits because for the two agriculture companies,

waste, meaning the dismissed plastic boards,

would be a cost

because they would have to get rid of those.

Also, it's a matter of having space to store those boards.

Their benefit is that they're getting rid of it,

and plus, they're getting something back,

either brand new plastic boards or the price or money.

For the plastics manufacturer, of course, it's good because

when it pays for the price, it's cheaper inputs

because the price that it pays is lower than for raw materials.

Then it, anyway,

works or reworks boards,

giving them back to the other agriculture company

as brand new products.

-The benefits are economic in the sense

that they can reuse materials and also environmental.

-They are economic and they are environmental

because, again, the waste that should have been disposed of

is in fact reused,

and you extend the life cycle of products.

In fact, industrial symbiosis enhances productivity

in terms of resource productivity

because the same inputs

are used and reused and recycled, so they have a longer life.

They don't stop right there at the end of one production chain.

-Right.

Now, you did quite detailed studies in both Africa and Latin America.

Did you see these processes mostly being applied to SMEs

or to larger companies?

-Normally,

industrial symbiosis networks are initiated by a large company

that we call an anchor company

that involves in the network smaller companies

up to micro businesses along its value chain.

It starts from a large company, but it involves many smaller companies.

-Right. It can also benefit SMEs?

-Yes, absolutely.

-Some of these processes

that are required to convert the waste into reusable resources,

are those not quite expensive?

I'm thinking, for example, of things like paper pulp and stuff like that.

-It depends because if you consider, for example, compost,

well, that doesn't entail much except work

to carry manure and work manure.

You don't need much in terms of equipment.

In agriculture, in fact, the applications tend to be cheaper

or less expensive

and not entailing expensive equipment.

Whereas,

if you talk about industry and manufacturing sector,

well, there, yes, you can have quite expensive equipment,

in particular, when you need to treat waste or by-products

to be able to rework them.

-Right. Now, what do you think the impact is on jobs

and, in particular, job quality?

Quantity is not the only argument here.

-No, quantity is for sure.

Definitely, industrial symbiosis creates jobs,

direct jobs with a median of about 1% increase for large companies,

30% for smaller companies,

so a bigger impact for smaller companies in terms of quality.

If you consider value chain, it's a minimum employment growth of 20%.

In our case studies, it can go as high as 50%

-increase. -That's pretty impressive.

-It is, really.

On a value chain level, it is an impressive job increase.

The quality, yes, is an issue because

if jobs are created in large companies, well, those are decent jobs,

formal and everything okay,

with even decent unionization rates.

For example, in Tanzania, we have 70-80% unionization rates

in the companies surveyed and involved in industrial symbiosis.

The problem is with smaller companies,

where there's quite a good share of informal employment

or temporary jobs because it's often seasonal.

That's not good.

Also, another aspect to take into account

is that the good jobs, the decent jobs,

the formal ones are normally occupied by men

because the prevailing sectors,

where large companies operate as industrial sectors,

they are male-dominated.

Whereas,

the informal jobs in smaller companies tend to be occupied mainly by women.

That's a problem.

-Something needs to be done there,

both in terms of improving the working conditions,

and I suppose through that formalization, and also on aspects of gender.

Is that a policy issue?

How do we get around that?

-Yes, certainly,

governments can do something about it.

For example, they can adopt active labour market policies

targeting women in specific sectors

where their participation is low.

Then employers and workers also can do something

that they can promote

and support the recruitment of women in decent formal jobs,

stemming from industrial symbiosis.

One good thing that we saw in our studies, in our country studies,

is that through industrial symbiosis,

often, micro businesses are set up and formalized,

which is a good way to formalize jobs

also those occupied by women.

For example, you can have waste pickers grouped together in a micro business,

which can take the form of a cooperative, and have a formal status.

-Why is there that trend towards formalization in this?

Is that because they're entering the supply chains

of larger and formal companies,

and therefore they have to do this?

-That's correct, Sophy.

That's exactly why it happens,

because large companies cannot or do not intend to afford it

to deal with informal entities.

If a micro business wants to be part of an industrial symbiosis network

led by a large formal company,

well, that micro business must become formal, must be formalized.

It's a requirement of large companies that the smaller entities get formalized.

-Right. That is presumably somewhere where both government intervention

and perhaps even the ILO could play a role in pushing this process along.

-Yes. Although from our studies,

it looks like companies act on their own for different reasons.

They want for social corporate responsibility,

for environmental and social certifications.

They have all sorts of internal, let's say, intrinsic reasons

why they want to push for formalization and do,

let's say, the good thing.

-Right. Okay. One of the things that struck me in reading your book

was that it says that IS, industrial symbiosis,

is found more often in advanced economies than in developing economies.

At face value, that seems to be a little illogical.

Is it because of this important role

that is clearly being played by larger and formal companies?

-Yes. Yes.

It's also linked to the fact that

the industrial sector is more developed and advanced

in rich countries as opposed to poor countries

whose economy is based more on agriculture.

Then I would say that

it's not that industrial symbiosis is more found in advanced economies.

It's just that we know more about it in advanced economies.

It's more literature and documentation.

In developing countries,

the topic has not been explored as much.

That's why the edited volume

that we are talking about now has some value,

because it explores an area that is rather undocumented.

-Right. You looked at, interestingly, both Africa and Latin America.

Did you find any particular differences in the approaches

those two groups of businesses were taking and in the outcomes?

-Yes. Yes, there are differences.

In Latin American countries, we considered Argentina, Colombia,

and Costa Rica.

In recent years,

governments have adopted national policies,

strategies, plans to foster the circular economy.

That's where industrial symbiosis thrives or is really emerging.

Whereas in Africa,

there are milder policies not focusing on the circular economy,

but more on solid waste management.

Recycling or industrial symbiosis is not quite there.

Also in Africa,

industrial symbiosis is normally supported by programs,

by external entities like NGOs,

in particular international NGOs or the regional level.

Whereas, in Latin America,

they can be also spontaneously created by large companies, by entrepreneurs.

Probably, yes, as you were hinting earlier,

in poorer economies, there are fewer large companies

that can initiate industrial symbiosis networks.

-This is obviously something with quite a lot of potential

to both economic

and in terms of creating decent jobs and better working conditions.

What do you think needs to be done

to increase its use further and maximize the potential benefits?

-First of all, I think

we should promote a culture of recycling in general,

because after all, industrial symbiosis is about recycling.

I think it's not yet quite embedded in our culture

that we have to go for recycling.

From there, also legal frameworks that promote recycling.

I'm not even talking about poor countries.

I'm talking about our own countries.

Sometimes we really don't know what to do with dismissed relevant goods.

We just throw them

because we don't have recycling opportunities.

Therefore, it's also largely for governments

to take actions in this respect

and develop adequate legal and regulatory frameworks.

-You mentioned also legal and also taxation, perhaps?

-With taxation incentives, entrepreneurs, when we surveyed them,

entrepreneurs are largely in favoor or, in fact, asking for incentives,

fiscal and economic incentives, because as we said earlier,

in some cases,

industrial symbiosis or recycling requires expensive equipment,

and therefore,

they would certainly welcome incentives in general.

-Great. Sabrina, fascinating topic.

Thank you so much.

Unfortunately, we're out of time.

We have to leave it there for today.

Maybe we'll have a chance to return to it,

because we talk about the circular economy quite a lot.

My guest today has been Sabrina de Gobbi,

who is ILO Senior economist and editor of a new book,

"Industrial Symbiosis and Productivity,

the Employment Effects in Developing Countries".

My thanks to you too, our listeners, for your time and attention.

Please join us again soon

for another look at some of the trends affecting the world of work.

Meanwhile, you can always catch up with us on social media.

That includes LinkedIn, X and Instagram.

For now, from me, Sophy Fisher,

and the rest of the Future of Work podcast team,

goodbye.