Ecoindustrial Parks

Evolution of the Concept of EIPs

Much of the early impetus behind the development of EIPs was derived from the now classic, and thoroughly documented, example of the town of Kalundborg, Denmark. Here, a complex web of 18 by-product material and energy exchanges among a relatively tight-knit cluster of companies and the local community emerged over the last 30 years. For example, the local power station pipes steam to a local biotechnology company (energy), which provides surplus yeast to local farmers as pig food (waste) and excess calcium sulfate (by-product) from the sulfur dioxide scrubbers to a local wallboard company. Such linkages evolved gradually and bilaterally (i.e., between individual firms), and without an overall design plan, as individual firms sought to make economic use of their by-products and to minimize the cost of compliance with new, ever-stricter environmental regulations. The network continues to evolve, with some linkages disappearing and new ones forming.

The experience at Kalundborg and the identification of other waste and by-product networks around the world stimulated calls for the development of EIPs that would establish [Page 154]by-product exchanges and energy cascades to form the nucleus of a future closed-loop industrial ecosystem. Further motivation toward EIPs in the United States was driven by the President's Council on Sustainable Development, which designated (but did not fund) four EIP demonstration sites in 1994—Baltimore, Maryland; Cape Charles, Virginia; Brownsville, Texas; and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Of the four, only Cape Charles became operational, but it abandoned its EIP focus in the early 2000s. The strategy of constructing EIPs was also adopted in Europe, Australia, and most recently, as an essential element of Chinese attempts to “green” their economy.

Although the term EIP uses the word park, the community of businesses does not necessarily need to reside within the physical confines of an industrial park. Rather, the key elements are proximity and collaboration among the firms, which leads to the mutual benefit (economic and environmental) of the firms involved, rather than a common physical location. Many developers use the term EIP relatively loosely, and more as a marketing tool, for facilities ranging from recycling centers, to groups of environmental technology companies, to companies making green products, to industrial parks with environmental infrastructure, and to mixed-use developments. However, the original conception of EIPs was that the firms would use each other's wastes and by-products as inputs for their products. For example, one model conceives of EIPs as involving at least one major anchor firm exporting raw or processed materials, which is connected with one or more firms capable of using significant portions of the anchor firm's waste stream and by-products, which in turn, would be linked to several “satellite” enterprises converting those wastes into usable products.

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