PhD defense of Karolina Södergren

Title

"From the Inside Out. Municipal Strategies for Governing Industrial and Urban Symbiosis"

Abstract

Industrial and urban symbiosis (IUS) is increasingly promoted as a means to reduce resource use, lower environmental impacts, and support local sustainability transitions. Municipalities are often assigned a key role in facilitating such arrangements, yet research has primarily focused on inter-firm collaboration and external coordination, paying limited attention to how municipal organizations themselves shape the conditions for symbiosis. This dissertation addresses this gap by examining how municipalities govern IUS from the inside out.

Drawing on five empirical studies (Papers I–V), the dissertation explores municipal roles and strategies in IUS governance, the organizational arrangements that shape how such work is carried out, and the value orientations of municipal actors, as expressed in governance practice through internal collaboration and coordination. The research combines two in-depth municipal case studies with comparative interviews and a national questionnaire, enabling both contextual insights and cross-municipal comparison. The material consists of a systematic literature review, qualitative interviews, document analysis, participatory observations, and a national questionnaire. The analysis is guided by a framework that combines perspectives on governing modes, public sector organization, and value orientations.

The findings show that municipalities engage in IUS through multiple forms of action, including facilitation, regulation, infrastructure provision, partnership, and experimentation within their own operations. However, sustained engagement is not primarily determined by the choice of governing role, but by whether symbiosis becomes anchored in established municipal practice. This anchoring takes place through the allocation of responsibilities, coordination across departments and municipally owned companies, and the integration of IUS into strategies and administrative routines. The results further demonstrate that organizational form and value orientations shape how IUS is interpreted, prioritized, and operationalized within municipal administrations. 

By foregrounding these internal dimensions, the dissertation contributes to research on IUS and to broader debates on public-sector sustainability governance. It shows that municipal contributions to symbiosis depend not only on technical solutions or policy instruments, but on the organizational work required to sustain direction, coordination, and responsibility over time. The dissertation also outlines implications for sustainability policy, suggesting that long-term IUS development requires support for organizational continuity and internal coordination alongside external collaboration.