An Eco-Industrial Park (EIP) is a community of businesses located on a common site, whose residents not only seek to achieve enhanced economic performance but also environmental and social performance.
Firm-level competitive advantages in these parks are derived from collective solutions aimed at generating enhanced resource productivity, deployment of technological solutions that facilitate industrial synergies and symbiosis, and from socially-responsible practices that both enhance workforce productivity and minimise potentially costly negative social externalities.
By going beyond optimizing individual business performance, companies within an EIP work together and in close cooperation with the surrounding community for achieving collective economic, environmental and social benefits.
This results in better managed, more competitive, risk resilient, resource-efficient and cost-effective industrial parks that are attractive for investment.
Eco-Industrial Parks can contribute to better integration of industry into society through the creation of shared economic opportunities and benefits, as well as improved ecosystems. Eco-Industrial Parks promote resource efficiency, productivity and a circular economy, making a contribution to sustainable cities, by rejecting the notion of any required trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection.