Eco-Industrial Case Studies

Introduction

The President's Council on Sustainable Development and the Port of Cape Charles Sustainable Technologies Industrial Park (an EIP) co-sponsored an Eco-Industrial Park Workshop at Cape Charles, Va., October 17-18, 1996. The eco-industrial parks represented at the meeting reflected a broad spectrum of goals, physical plants, managing entities and progress, illustrating that there is more than one way to conceptualize and implement the concept. The case studies that follow are short summaries provided by each attendee at the workshop.

The stated goals for almost all of the parks included job creation, increasing the tax base, or other economic objectives. Four EIPs had education as one of their explicit goals. Some parks were visionary, with goals such as becoming the first multi-modal EIP with an ISO 14000 environmental management system in the US; becoming a zero-emissions or closed-loop manufacturing EIP; having all major tenants producing sustainable products with sustainable manufacturing practice, eventually becoming totally energy independent of fossil fuels or outside electricity.

Physical features were highly variable. Two parks were not places but were "virtual" EIPs with materials exchanged on a regional network basis. The actual parks ranged in size from 3.5 acres to 7000 acres (note: many EIPs did not reveal acreage). The physical settings also varied; six of the parks will reclaim brownfields; three will develop greenfields. While most EIPs were based on manufacturing, two focused on agricultural products, one included marine technology and aquaculture, and one involved sustainable harvesting of a second growth coastal forested area. Three parks plan to provide scenic landscape or other recreational use in addition to economic use.

Managing entities encompassed government and private sectors, including cities, counties, towns or their development authorities; local economic development corporations; private industry; and other non-government organizations.

Parks were in various stages of development, with a few still in the design stage, some with baseline studies underway or completed, and several already in the recruitment phase. One claimed information about status was proprietary. No parks were fully implemented as yet.

This thumbnail sketch may not fully reflect the variety in the EIP concept as it exists today in the US: besides the 16 parks that were represented at the workshop, an additional four parks were invited but did not respond to the survey or attend the workshop.

Index to Eco-Industrial Park Case Studies

• Brownsville Eco-Industrial Park, Brownsville, Texas
• Burnside Eco-Industrial Park, Nova Scotia (Canada)
• Civano Industrial Eco Park , Tucson, Arizona
• East Bay Eco-Industrial Park, San Francisco Bay, California
• Fairfield Ecological Industrial Park, Baltimore, Maryland
• Franklin County Eco-Industrial Park, Youngsville, North Carolina
• Green Institute, The , Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Plattsburgh Eco-Industrial Park, New York
• Port of Cape Charles Sustainable Technologies Industrial Park, Eastville, Northampton County, Virginia
• Raymond Green Eco-Industrial Park, Raymond, Washington
• Riverside Eco- Park, Burlington, Vermont
• Skagit County Environmental Industrial Park, Skagitt County, Washington
• Shady Side Eco-Business Park, Shady Side, Maryland
• Stonyfield Londonderry Eco-Industrial Park, Londonderry, New Hampshire
• Trenton Eco-Industrial Complex, Trenton, New Jersey
• Volunteer Site, The , Chattanooga, Tennessee