Beyond One-Size-Fits-All: A Flow-Based Typology of Circular Industrial Symbiosis Ecosystems and Equifinal Pathways to Environmental Performance

Industrial symbiosis (IS) research has documented many successful ecosystems but still lacks an empirically grounded typology linking resource flow configurations to environmental outcomes across diverse contexts. This study develops such a typology and tests whether distinct configurations achieve comparable environmental performance through different pathways—the configurational principle of equifinality. Drawing on 68 documented IS ecosystems across 48 countries, we apply k-means clustering to five flow-intensity dimensions—material, energy, water, logistics, and knowledge—and characterise the resulting partition using one-way ANOVA, Tukey HSD post hoc tests, multinomial logistic regression, and a Cox proportional-hazards model. Four configurations emerge: a dominant low-flow group (n = 34) and three coordinated configurations—energy–knowledge (n = 11), material-dominant (n = 16), and water-oriented (n = 7). The three coordinated configurations all significantly outperform the low-flow group on environmental performance (F(3, 57) = 11.60, p < 0.001), with effect sizes very similar and no significant differences among them, providing direct empirical evidence for equifinality. Economic performance does not differ significantly across configurations, and the multinomial model of contextual predictors is jointly insignificant—a pattern we read as consistent with equifinal contextual pathways rather than as a methodological flaw. Robustness checks across alternative clustering algorithms, operationalisations, and sub-samples support the typology’s stability. This study contributes an empirically grounded framework for circular economy practice that moves beyond one-size-fits-all prescriptions and offers a configurational lens for the design of sustainable industrial ecosystems.