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Approaching Industrial Sustainability Investments in Resource Efficiency Through Agent-Based Simulation

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Service Orientation in Holonic and Multi-Agent Manufacturing

Part of the book series: Studies in Computational Intelligence ((SCI,volume 640))

Abstract

To develop more sustainable industrial systems industrialists and policy makers need to better understand how to respond to economic, environmental, and social challenges and transform industrial behaviour by leveraging appropriate industrial technology investments to reshape the current manufacturing value chain. Investments have to be collected on the private as well as public sides taking into account the stakeholders’ macro-economic framework. Since aggregate mathematical models, assuming informed, rational behaviour leading to equilibrium conditions cannot catch the resulting complexity, an agent-based modelling and simulation approach is proposed to investigate policies to support investments in resource efficiency. The EURACE agent-based framework has been adopted and modified by coupling the environmental sector with other established macroeconomic dimensions. The findings of this research establish the potential and capability of the proposed approach for investigating policies for sustainability transition analysis and evaluation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The pecking order theory [19] is adopted to determine a hierarchy of financial sources for the firm.

  2. 2.

    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/e052vgaix6a1x87/AADjTOSe0oRe4vcuoHcyKxCQa?dl=0.

  3. 3.

    NB: IR0 (straight lines) versus IR2 (dash lines)

    Subsidy percentages: 0 %-red; 5 %-blue; 10 %-pink; 15 %-black; 20 %-green.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge EU-FP7 collaborative project SYMPHONY under grant No. 611875. A special thanks to Dr. William Samuel Short, postdoctoral from Institute for Manufacturing, Cambridge University for precious contribution and collaboration on industrial sustainability suggestions with respect to agent-based modelling and simulation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Energetics, Management and Transportation (DIME), Polytechnic School, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

    F. Tonelli, G. Fadiran, M. Raberto & S. Cincotti

Authors
  1. F. Tonelli
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  2. G. Fadiran
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  3. M. Raberto
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  4. S. Cincotti
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to F. Tonelli .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fac of Auto Ctrl & Comp Sci (Automatica), University Politehnica of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Theodor Borangiu

  2. and Hainaout-Cambresis, University of Valenciennes, Valenciennes cedex 9, France

    Damien Trentesaux

  3. University of Lorraine, Epinal cedex 9, France

    André Thomas

  4. Cambridge University, Institute for Manufacturing Engineering, Cambridge, United Kingdom

    Duncan McFarlane

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Tonelli, F., Fadiran, G., Raberto, M., Cincotti, S. (2016). Approaching Industrial Sustainability Investments in Resource Efficiency Through Agent-Based Simulation. In: Borangiu, T., Trentesaux, D., Thomas, A., McFarlane, D. (eds) Service Orientation in Holonic and Multi-Agent Manufacturing. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 640. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30337-6_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30337-6_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-30335-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-30337-6

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