Abstract

This article explores how to get companies engaged in value-creating cooperation regarding residual materials. Within different contexts, industrial ecology needs matchmakers who act as network orchestrators to facilitate new forms of interorganizational cooperation on what were previously perceived as "junk materials." Three case studies of eco-industrial networks in Denmark (Kalundborg), Canada (the Québec region), and France (Dunkirk) demonstrate the various roles of the matchmakers to ensure the implementation of industrial ecology at the interorganizational level. This article highlights four strategic activities for matchmakers: revealing value in industrial ecology, generating trust, activating industrial ecology, and institutionalizing industrial ecology.