Case studies of industrial partnerships in the Sarnia‐Lambton area of southern Ontario

Industries form partnerships or networks for economic reasons. These partnerships either reduce process inputs or extract some additional value from a by-product or avoid the cost of disposing of a residual by finding a use for it. Examples of this in the Sarnia-Lambton area are the markets developed for by-product gypsum from flue gas scrubbing, and the cascading of steam from electric power generation. The best known case of a well developed network is at Kalundborg in Denmark where some ten industries and services are linked together to cascade steam, water, gas and a range of other by-products in a symbiotic system. The network was assembled for economic reasons and has been in operation for more than fifteen years. The question which this study addressed is, that if certain conditions resulted in development of a network at Kalundborg, would similar conditions elsewhere result in formation of similar networks? To answer to this question, the Sarnia-Lambton area was chosen as a mature, heavily industrialized region and a study was undertaken to analyze the extent to which partnerships and networks had formed and, if they had not, to identify the factors which prevented their formation.