In March 2025, the 4.5-year-long project Coralis came to an end – an EU project involving participants from seven countries and a total of 29 partners. The aim has been to provide increased knowledge and practical experience in the implementation of industrial symbiosis.
Industrial symbiosis aims to increase resource efficiency through collaboration between different actors. Together, they can create added value, for example by finding new uses for underutilised resources such as waste, excess heat, and by-products.
"The main ambition of the project was to implement industrial symbiosis, but also to generate and disseminate knowledge relevant to the implementation stage of industrial symbiosis – about the challenges involved and how to address them," says Murat Mirata, Associate Professor and project leader from Linköping University.
Surplus heat for greenhouses
Coralis focused on industries with high energy consumption and carried out development projects in three separate regions. In Spain, the project explored the possibility of producing potassium-based fertiliser using new technology, carbon dioxide from a nearby facility, and internal by-products. In Italy, the focus was on investigating how by-products from metal processing could be converted into valuable resources.
In Sweden, a ten-hectare greenhouse was built in Frövi, partly heated by surplus heat from a nearby cardboard factory. The greenhouse has the potential to produce around one tenth of Swedish tomato consumtion. During the project, they also examined whether carbon dioxide emissions from the factory’s boiler could be utilised. In this case, however, they concluded that it would not work well, either technically or economically.
“Some waste streams are actually very difficult to create value from. The project has also highlighted these kinds of challenges,” says Murat Mirata.
LiU’s role in the research project
LiU has been involved in several aspects of Coralis. Murat Mirata and Marianna Lena Kambanou were responsible for two of the project’s main areas: research on management and delivery of education. Together with other researchers from LiU, the duo explored how companies can identify the value of industrial symbiosis, what conditions need to be in place to secure the expected value, manage risks and how successful collaborations can be established. The researchers created new knowledge and guidance on diverse value and risk dimensions, business models, pricing, contracts, financing, as well an structures and processes for information and knowledge exchange.
“We investigated what management structures and processes need to be in place for symbiotic relationships to emerge — but also to deliver value in the long run,” says Murat Mirata.
The most climate-smart tomato in Sweden.
Industrial symbiosis is fundamentally based on collaboration. Marianna Lena Kambanou highlights that there is great potential and significant opportunities to use resources more efficiently. But it requires people who can find solutions. You might think that it’s enough for two parties to reach an agreement, but the truth is that there are many surrounding factors that greatly influence whether things can move forward or not. One of the major challenges is that many actors lack experience. There is a need to spread knowledge.
“Industrial symbiosis requires organisations to work with new partners in new ways — but also to work with new types of resources, with different characteristics, that they are not used to handling,” says Murat Mirata.
One obstacle companies may encounter is that it can be difficult to secure loans to finance investments in new collaborations.
“Banks lack experience and ways of properly assessing the impacts of symbiotic collaborations. So we also looked into financing issues,” says Marianna Lena Kambanou.
Education in industrial symbiosis
The researchers at LiU have developed an educational programme in industrial symbiosis and have provided training to a range of practitioners — including municipalities, organisations, companies, and universities. The aims have been to advance relevant knowledge and skills and eventual implementation of industrial symbiosis across different sectors. Some of the new knowledge generated through the project has also been incorporated into courses at LiU. Two new online courses have been developed.
What has it been like working on this project?
“We have really succeeded in conducting research in an area where very little has been done before. Management aspects are critical, but remain under-explored. How do you go about agreeing on prices? What are the key issues when negotiating contracts? What are the challenges in securing financing? I genuinely think we’ve managed to build a solid foundation of knowledge in these areas,” says Murat Mirata.
