A transition with a long way to go
Europe’s economy is still largely linear. In 2022, the EU generated more than 2.2 billion tonnes of waste, about five tonnes per inhabitant. Construction accounted for 38.4% of this total, and mining and quarrying for 22.7%.

Only a small share of materials finds its way back into the economy. According to Eurostat, the EU’s circular material use rate reached 12.2% in 2024. That is its highest level yet, but still far from the goal of doubling it to 23.2% by 2030. The gap between Member States is wide, from 32.7% in the Netherlands to just 1.3% in Romania.

The policy agenda is moving: the European Commission has put a Circular Economy Act on its 2026 work programme. But technology and regulation alone will not close the gap. It takes people who can turn environmental goals into practical decisions. For students about to start work, understanding how organisations use resources, manage waste and cooperate with others is becoming useful in a growing number of professions.

INSET is supported by Erasmus+ and takes on this challenge directly. Through training, practical tools and knowledge sharing, it brings industrial symbiosis to learners and practitioners. It links an understanding of circular business models with the hands-on skills needed to make them work.

How industrial symbiosis works

Industrial ecology treats businesses as part of a wider system of material, energy and water flows. Industrial symbiosis turns this idea into practice through cooperation: a resource one organisation no longer needs can be valuable to another.
Surplus heat from an industrial process can warm a nearby facility. Suitable by-products can replace some of the raw materials another company uses. Organisations can also share infrastructure and services such as water treatment, logistics or energy supply.
Kalundborg, in Denmark, is the best-known example of what this cooperation can achieve over time. There, 16 public and private partners exchange water, energy and materials. Each year, the symbiosis saves 586,000 tonnes of CO₂ and 4 million m³ of groundwater, and recycles 62,000 tonnes of residual materials. Since 2015, its partners have cut their CO₂ emissions by 80%.
For students, this changes the questions they ask. Instead of only “How can this organisation reduce its waste?”, they learn to ask:

• Who could use this resource?
• Which partners would need to work together?
• What would make the exchange technically feasible, economically viable and environmentally beneficial?

Skills for every career path
Industrial symbiosis is not only for environmental specialists. Graduates going into management, purchasing, logistics, business development or public administration can all use this perspective to spot opportunities for cooperation and better use of resources.

• A purchasing professional might look for alternative material sources.
• A project officer could connect businesses with complementary needs.
• A territorial development officer might help companies, local authorities and research organisations work together.

Each of these roles calls for both analytical and interpersonal skills: mapping resource flows, assessing opportunities, communicating across disciplines and building trust. Technical knowledge matters, but cooperation succeeds when people can organise joint action. In practice, many industrial symbiosis initiatives depend on a facilitator who maps flows, brings companies to the table and keeps the dialogue going.

Practical resources for learners
INSET offers a 100-hour modular training programme with two learning pathways: IS Planner and IS Project Manager. On the Validu web platform, learners can follow the training and use practical resources, including a best-practice publication and a handbook for running industrial symbiosis networking sessions. Because it runs in a browser and is modular, the training fits around studies, internships or a job.
The project’s toolkit includes 10 industrial symbiosis case studies that show how cooperation works in different settings. It has already been used in a university course: at Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania, 17 circular economy students used the toolkit in their coursework to link theory with real-world applications.

For students and recent graduates, these resources can support coursework, suggest dissertation topics and help them think through challenges they meet during internships or their first jobs.
A growing market for green skills
The job market makes these skills even more relevant. According to Eurostat, employment in the EU’s environmental economy reached 5.8 million full-time equivalents in 2023, up from 3.6 million in 2014. That is 2.2 million more jobs in less than a decade. Waste management and materials recovery alone grew from 0.9 to 1.3 million full-time equivalents over the same period.

This growth is expected to continue. The European Commission estimates that applying circular economy principles could add 0.5% to EU GDP and create around 700,000 new jobs by 2030.
Yet the supply of skilled people is not keeping up. LinkedIn’s Global Green Skills Report 2024 shows that demand for green talent grew by 11.6% between 2023 and 2024, while the supply of workers with green skills grew by only 5.6%. Workers with green skills were hired at a rate about 55% higher than the overall workforce.

Industrial symbiosis skills fit roles in circular economy projects, sustainability consulting, resource efficiency and business network coordination. Depending on their background, graduates can specialise in the field or bring these skills into the profession they already have.

Bringing the circular transition into university life
Our 28 September outreach had one clear aim: to get students involved in industrial ecology early, while they are still shaping their interests, gaining experience and weighing their career options. By raising INSET’s profile at the start of the academic year, we wanted to show that young people can help drive the circular transition through concrete career choices and collaborative projects.

Ready to get started? Explore the INSET learning resources and discover how industrial symbiosis can become part of your studies and your professional future.

Sources

• European Parliament, Sustainable waste management: what the EU is doing (Eurostat data, 2022)
• European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform, The circular material use rate in the EU reached the highest level yet in 2024 (Eurostat, November 2025)
• European Parliament, Legislative Train Schedule, Circular Economy Act
• Kalundborg Symbiosis, official website
• Eunews, Eurostat data on employment in the environmental economy (April 2026)
• eceee, EU unveils circular economy plan 2.0 (European Commission figures, March 2020)
• LinkedIn Economic Graph, Global Green Skills Report 2024