Industrial Ecosystems: Developing Sustainable Industrial Structures

By Nicholas Gertler

 

Chapter 4. Industrial Ecosystems in the U.S.

[ to table of contents]

As part of the President's Environmental Technology Initiative (ETI), the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) and the U.S. EPA commenced in 1994 an Eco-industrial park project. EPA provided $300,000 "to design and develop an environmentally sound industrial park, which will create jobs and promote innovative technology. [ Statement of Carol Browner, Administrator, U.S. EPA, PCSD Eco-Efficiency Task Force Press Conference, April 18, 1994.] " This undertaking represents the first national initiative in the United States to develop and foster applications of industrial ecology to industrial parks. As such, it is a major step forward in bringing IE theory and practice into the mainstream and introducing it to a wider audience than was previously exposed. However, as part of the Clinton Administration's Environmental Technology Initiative, the project is highly political, with the result that ribbon-cutting may receive higher priority than substantive results. The PCSD has so far acted as more of an observer than a designer or developer. Perhaps this is the way it should be, but such a posture leaves much of the success or failure of the project up to those involved with four EIP demonstration projects, with little help from the Federal Government. The PCSD is poised to come forth with policy recommendations to further such development, but all else is likely to have to come from the partnerships of state and local governments and private interests that have been brought together at the four demonstration sites. 

Project Implementation 

The goals of the Eco-Industrial Park Project were set forth by the Project Implementation Plan [ EPA, Eco-Industrial Park Project Implementation Plan 1994] as follows: 

"To design and develop an environmentally sound industrial park that creates jobs and advances state-of-the-art technology innovation; to provide a forum for piloting flexible, cost-effective approaches to meeting environmental standards mandated by law, while at the same time exploring opportunities to improve environmental, economic, and social outcomes; to demonstrate in practical terms the principles and concepts of sustainable development at the community level; to provide an 'incubator' for new approaches to pollution prevention, training, and new technologies for export to other nations." 

These are lofty goals indeed, and rather general. An eco-industrial park is apparently better in all respects than the forms of development that have come before. In the words of one EPA official, "The goal of an eco-industrial park is to advance national goals. [ Lea Swanson, Personal communication, 8/11/94] " Lacking any formal definition, the eco-industrial park is identified by a set of outcomes, all of which are desirable. The Project Background presents industrial ecology as the necessary and sufficient agent of transformation by which these outcomes are achieved: 

"Traditionally, the management of the interface between industry and natural systems has been poorly managed. Poor management has resulted in pollution -- an economically costly and environmentally degrading output. Industrial ecology matches the inputs and outputs of the manmade world to the constraints of the biosphere. 

In addition, industrial ecology builds on the important foundation of pollution prevention. Pollution prevention has evolved as a process of gradually backing away from end-of-pipe control, but does not link industrial components into a comprehensive system. Industrial ecology is a systemic framework that fills these gaps. Industrial ecology advances the concept of "product responsibility" so that costs of waste-generation cannot be externalized by sources. Industrial ecology advances the concepts of design for environment by ensuring design of facilities, processes, products, and services with awareness of both ecological and economic costs/benefits across the whole life cycle. [ EPA, Eco-Industrial Park Project Implementation Plan 1994] " 

All this sounds convenient, but it is semantically tenuous. It is essential to bear in mind that industrial ecology doesn't do a thing. Industrial ecology is not an agent of action; it is a set of ideas. It is not industrial ecology that is to achieve all of the above but rather people who apply industrial ecology. This is a critical distinction, but one that seems lost in the above passages. 

Of course, the body of thought that collectively has developed and come to be known as industrial ecology can offer valuable insight into how such goals can and should be approached. Yet such sweeping statements as the above, which out of nowhere imbue industrial ecology with the ability to apply itself by fiat, gloss over the significant issues of implementation. 

If the EIP Project Implementation Plan revealed eco-industrial parks as the unified path to development for the future, a teleconferenced meeting of the eco-industrial park team held in August of 1994 revealed them more as a patchwork expression of stakeholder interests. A representative from the AFL-CIO indicated that the key to an eco-industrial park is high-paying jobs. According to someone from the Department of Commerce, the focus should be on quality of employment. A stalwart from the IE community pointed out the need for self-organization. This author wondered aloud where all this was going. The EPA lead person indicated that whatever an EIP ends up being, there needs to be a ribbon-cutting by June of 1995, less than one year away from the meeting. To a large extent then, an EIP was revealed as what you like. 

The President's Council on Sustainable Development, through the Eco-Industrial Park Project, had $300,000 to spend in 1994 on supporting the development of EIPs, and the main purpose of the meeting in August of 1994 was to select the sites that would be supported. Four sites were in the running: Brownsville, Texas/Matamoros, Mexico; Baltimore and Rochester, New York; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Port of Cape Charles, Virginia. Each of these areas had a team of local officials complemented by consultants from the outside. Baltimore and Rochester shared a project leader in Ed Cohen-Rosenthal of Cornell University. Brownsville and Matamoros are located on adjacent sides of the U.S./Texas border and are home to an undertaking that involves both cities. 

Representatives from each of the four locales made a short presentation as to why their site should be selected, a seemingly competitive process which was followed by an announcement by the EPA lead person that each site would in fact receive PCSD support. Thus began Phase II of the Eco-Industrial Park Project, which, according to EPA documents, "involves applying the design concept to specific sites and to formalize a public/private partnership to create one or more demonstration eco-industrial parks. [Eco-Industrial Park Project Implementation Plan, 1994 p. 4] " 

Phase I: The Eco-Industrial Park Generic Design Study 

Phase I of the Eco-Industrial Park Project involves the development of a generic design concept for an EIP which is to form the basis for application and testing in one or more sites in Phase II. Questions to be answered in the research/design phase include: 

• what design principles can guide assembling a tenant mix in a park that is optimally resilient in the face of inevitable tenant turnover? 

• how can the right mix of companies for a park be recruited to optimize trading wastes as by-products? 

• how will the right mix be maintained as companies move, fail, or otherwise leave the park? 

• what design principles will ensure optimal materials and energy flows in the park? 

• what design frameworks and tools will be needed to integrate economic, socio-political, technological, and environmental planning in the actual development process and in the ongoing management of the park? 

• what policy shifts are needed to accommodate development of eco-industrial parks and retrofitting of established parks? 

• how can various levels of government best act to catalyze development of parks by the private sector? 

• what is the baseline of relatively certain economic and environmental benefits in the park concept that will reduce risks for developers and tenants participating in demonstration projects? 

• what criteria will be applied to select eco-industrial park sites? 

Results relating to these and other questions are intended to enable the application of the design concept to specific sites of eco-industrial park development and to foster public/private partnerships to create one or more demonstration EIPs. The final step in Phase I was to have been the development of an action plan for Phase II, but funding delays held up the start of the project with the result that Phases I and II were started concurrently. 

Sources: EPA "Eco-Industrial Park Project Implementation Plan" 1994; Ernie Lowe, personal communication. 

The "design concept" referred to above was to have been developed as Phase I prior to the start of Phase II. It was to be a generic design study of the eco-industrial park concept, and would presumably have supplied much of the substance and focus that was lacking in the deliberations described above. Unfortunately, funding for the entire project was delayed in getting through Congress, pushing the start-date back, while the ribbon-cutting target of June 1995 was held fixed. As a result, the results of the Phase I study, which were to enlighten the development of the Phase II demonstration projects, were not available at the start of Phase II. Phases I and II got started more or less concurrently. This is a shame, because the Phase I study to be carried out by Research Triangle Institute and Indigo Development, a consulting firm specializing in the application of industrial ecology, was slated to address the core group of key issues in EIP development (see box). 

Because Phase II began without the benefit of the results of Phase I, the demonstration projects have had no common knowledge base to work from, as the PCSD did not appear to provide any direction from above beyond the diffuse goals set forth in the Project Implementation Plan. The role of the PCSD to date has been limited largely to that of an observer, with meetings held at the various sites but with little substantive interference or support. The project time table allows one year from the time that demonstration sites were selected, in July 1994, to the official ribbon cutting, scheduled for June of 1995, by which time tangible results are expected. Given the complexities at hand, it is highly unlikely that this project will uniquely produce an eco-industrial park in that sort of time frame. The realistic result of the PCSD EIP project, as will be discussed further below, is to encourage development already underway that is compatible with the EIP concept (however it ends up being defined), to introduce the notion of EIPs to a larger community than would otherwise be exposed to it, and to produce policy recommendations to enable such development. These are significant benefits, although they fall well short of the somewhat hyperbolic project goals. 

For the time being, however, the lack of common basis among the demonstration projects extends to issues as fundamental as the very conception of an eco-industrial park. In the words of the leader of a three-day design session held in April 1995 to flesh out the Cape Charles EIP, "We have no clue about what an eco-industrial park is. Nobody does. [ William McDonough, quoted in The Virginian-Pilot & The Ledger-Star April 6, 1995] " 

The Phase I EIP study 

The above statement is not entirely correct. At the time of this writing, Indigo Development, under a subcontract with Research Triangle Institute, is in the process of putting together a Fieldbook on the Development of Eco-Industrial Parks, which defines them as follows: 

An eco-industrial park is a community of manufacturing and service businesses seeking enhanced environmental and economic performance through collaboration in management of environmental and energy issues. By working together, the community of businesses seeks a collective benefit that is greater than the sum of individual benefits each company would realize if it optimized its individual performance only. 

The goal of an EIP is to improve the economic performance of the participating companies. Components of this approach include new or retrofitted design of park infrastructure and plants; pollution prevention; energy efficiency; and inter-company partnering. Through collaboration, this community of companies becomes an "industrial ecosystem. [ Draft January 30, 1995. p.1-1] " 

The Fieldbook treats the exchange and reuse of industrial byproducts as feedstocks as a significant EIP attribute flowing from this definition, while incorporating other themes such as a recycling business cluster, a collection of environmental technology companies and companies making 'green' products, the use of renewable energy sources, environmentally friendly infrastructure and construction, and mixed use development. An eco-industrial park transcends any single one of these attributes, but includes some or all of them. The critical element, it is written, is the set of interactions among park members and between them and their natural environment. 

While still in draft stage, the Fieldbook is a meaningful, comprehensive, and integrated resource bringing the concepts of industrial ecology to bear on the design and operation of industrial parks. As such, it is 
a primer for aspiring eco-industrial park developers. One of its strengths is the articulation of a specific end-point or ideal of an EIP toward the development of which the rest of the Fieldbook is aimed (see box). 

Characteristics of a Fully Developed Eco-Industrial Park 

Several basic strategies are fundamental to developing an EIP or industrial ecosystem. Individually, each adds value; together they form a whole greater than the sum of its parts. 

Integration into Natural Systems 

• design the EIP in terms of the characteristics and constraints of local ecosystems 

EIP and Energy Systems 

• maximize energy efficiency through facility design or rehabilitation, co-generation, energy 

cascading, and other means 

- achieve higher efficiency through inter-plant energy flows 

- use renewable sources extensively 

Site-Wide Design of Materials Flows and Waste Management 

• emphasize pollution prevention, especially with toxics 

• ensure maximum re-use and recycling of materials among EIP businesses 

• reduce toxic materials risks through integrated site-level waste treatment 

• link the EIP to companies in the surrounding region as consumers and generators of usable 

Water flows in an EIP are also designed to conserve resources through strategies similar to those described for energy and materials. 

Effective EIP Management 

In addition to standard park management and maintenance functions, park management 

• maintains the right mix of companies needed to best use by-products as companies change; 

• supports continuous improvement in environmental performance for individual companies and 
the park as a whole and 

• operates a site-wide information system that supports inter-company communications, informs members of local environmental conditions, and provides feedback on EIP performance. 

Construction/Rehabilitation 

New construction or rehabilitation of existing buildings follows best environmental practices in materials selection and building technology, including recycling or reuse of materials. 

Quoted from Fieldbook on the Development of Eco-Industrial Parks Draft January 30, 1995 p.1-3. 

These park characteristics raise a number of conceptual design issues which are addressed in a later chapter of this thesis. Suffice for now that the above elements come together to form a coherent outline of what makes an industrial park an EIP. 

Having articulated the goals and attributes of an eco-industrial park, the Fieldbook provides guidance interspersed with case studies and examples to shepherd developers toward the realization of EIPs. In somewhat of a role reversal, experience from the EIP demonstration projects at Chattanooga and Brownsville are providing opportunities to test Fieldbook ideas and document development efforts and progress. While Ernest Lowe, its principal author, claims that the Fieldbook will never be completely finished since experience with EIPs will continually expand and change over time, it promises to serve as the primary work on EIP development once a version is completed. 

Phase II Demonstration Projects 

The demonstration projects in Chattanooga, Baltimore, Brownsville, and Cape Charles are forging ahead with development which they refer to as eco-industrial parks. These projects represent various conceptions of EIPs and tend to be pre-existing development efforts that have more recently taken on an eco-park dimension. 

Chattanooga [ The bulk of the material presented in this section is based on "Chattanooga, Tennessee: Eco-Industrial Parks in a Larger Context" by Dr. Douglas Holmes, in Fieldbook on the Development of Eco-Industrial Parks Draft January 30, 1995 Appendix] 

Home to one of the PCSD-sanctioned eco-industrial park projects, Chattanooga has plotted a course toward becoming an eco-industrial city. Named in 1968 by the EPA as the major U.S. city with the dirtiest air, Chattanooga has rebounded with a broad-based sustainable community initiative that features ecosystem cleanup, an environmental business economic development plan, and four potential sites for eco-industrial parks. From an environmental nadir in the late sixties, and the flight of manufacturing jobs in the seventies, Chattanooga has emerged as a city that is widely hailed to be well ahead of most in planning for the next century. 

What emerged from the environmental and economic crisis of the late sixties and early seventies was a wide-spread civic consciousness and awareness of common problems requiring common solutions. People began to talk in small groups and with local agendas, a process which fed upon itself and grew. This civic renaissance was galvanized in 1984 when Chattanooga Venture, a non-profit, privately funded group, set out to organize a city-wide planning process to involve all sectors of the community. Meetings run by facilitators were held in virtually every neighborhood. Hundreds of facilitators guided hundreds of meetings, bringing in hundreds of people who had never before been involved with civic issues. What emerged was a development plan called Vision 2000, focused mainly on urban renewal. 

Building on the success of Vision 2000, Chattanooga Venture convened in 1993 an Environmental Forum which drew upon expertise from around the country. Inspired by the proceedings, Chattanooga Venture launched Revision 2000 to update its by now ten-year-old forerunner. This undertaking resulted in even more citizen involvement, and was followed by another environmental forum. By now urban renewal was wedded to the concept of environmental quality and preservation. The new Tennessee Aquarium was built, a scenic bridge across the Tennessee river which was slated for demolition was instead converted to a linear park for pedestrians and bicyclists, and over $700 million was committed to new projects, including a stadium and a trade center. 

All this activity attracted nationwide attention, including that of the President's Council on Sustainable Development. Four sites in and around Chattanooga are being groomed to become eco-industrial parks. The one that has been most enthusiastically embraced by civic leaders is a proposed environmental technology complex within the Chattanooga enterprise community zone, also known as the South Central Business District. 

This site is 100 acres in size, and is adjacent to the Tennessee Valley Authority’s power headquarters. It includes abandoned foundries, dilapidated industrial structures, and vacant lots. Some of these structures are slated to be reclaimed, and infrastructure improvements will include service by electric buses and the development of pedestrian-oriented greenways. The TVA, city, county, state, the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, and the Chattanooga State Technical Community College are all active partners. The project has received a $1.2 million planning and design grant awarded by the city and county, in addition to $700,000 from the state for site planning and reclamation. 

Central to the business district’s reincarnation as an EIP is the creation of a Gunter Pauli-style zero-emissions manufacturing complex. According to the South Central Business District Plan, the controlling planning document, 

A special site has been designated for "Eco-Industrial" uses. The intent is to create a "zero-emissions" zone where the wastes of one business become the fuel for another. The types of businesses that will be targeted for this area are those that provide well-paying, high-quality manufacturing jobs along with a commitment to environmental quality. Several companies have already expressed an interest in such a site and the marketing approach builds on this demand. An "Ecology Center" is planned in conjunction with the Eco-Industrial zone which would serve a multitude of purposes, including cleaning contaminated soils, wastewater treatment through biological processes, incubator office space, and educational, research, and visitor facilities [ "The South Central Business District Plan" Prepared for RiverValley Partners by Calthorpe Associates and William McDonough Architects. Januray 1995.] . 

One of the attractions of zero-emissions manufacturing is the ability to locate downtown which will result in diminished infrastructure needs. The United Nations University’s Zero Emissions Research Initiative has expressed interest in locating a Zero-Emissions Research Institute at this site. The actual mix of companies to locate in this eco-industrial area is yet to be determined, but the carpet maker Collins and Aikman has been claimed to be a shoe-in by William McDonough, whose firm of architects and planners drew up the South Central Business District Plan. Two or three other large businesses are said to be engaged in confidential negotiations and are seriously considering the idea [ Doug Holmes, personal communication] . 

The main difficulty with this line of development is that the 100 acre site is comprised of over 500 separate parcels, the title to which needs to be consolidated before development can begin. There is also a need to asses the contamination of each site due to past industrial activity in order to asses potential environmental remediation liabilities. There is a feeling that under the constraints of current EPA regulations this process could require several years. This hindrance comes much to the chagrin of city leaders, who favor the downtown site because of its visibility and because of the potential to bring jobs downtown and adjacent to existing and future housing and to public transportation infrastructure. 

The other leading candidate for EIP development is on the site of the former Volunteer Army Ammunition Plant, which is currently mothballed and held in readiness. 4000 acres of the site are under control of the city and county and zoned for industrial use. A key attribute of this site is that the Army and Department of Defense have agreed to assume all responsibility for environmental liabilities that may arise as a result of past contamination. Because the land holding is consolidated, this site avoids the major disadvantages of the downtown location. This potential eco-industrial park has extensive infrastructure including buildings, roads, rail sidings, water, and sewer, and was designed to be self-sufficient for water and electricity. ICI Americas is under contract to operate the site and is charged with generating revenue from the government-owned land. Other partners include the DOD, city, county, Southeast Tennessee Development District, River Valley Partners, the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, and Chattanooga State Technical Community College. Funding is comprised of a $0.5 million planning grant from DOD, $2.5 million for marketing and development from private sources, and $100,000 for Environmental Network Project, an undertaking organized as a flexible network (see Chapter 6), for developing an integrated waste exchange. 

The intended uses of the park include environmental research, recycling industries, and integrated industrial sites. While the South Central Business District’s potential EIP is imbued with the spirit of industrial ecology by Gunter Pauli and Bill McDonough, as well as by City Councilman Dave Crockett, who has picked up and run with the torch, it is unclear what, if anything, will create the impetus for an eco-park at the army site. Redevelopment is now planned, and will likely occur given the favorable terms available for occupancy, but there is no force in place at this time to make this an eco-industrial park, so that it may simply end up as traditional development. 

The third potential site is a 1000 acre suburban greenfield park to be assembled by the city and county for development by RiverValley Partners. The main innovation planned for this site is the opportunity to demonstrate that people can live where they work. 

The final site is an abandoned industrial area in an low-income residential neighborhood and near a federal Superfund site. The opportunities at this location include overcoming barriers to reuse of abandoned industrial sites by limiting the cost of remediation, and job creation and neighborhood revitalization in an economically distressed area. The link to industrial ecology has yet to be made in this case. 

Chattanooga is clearly a city on the move, and developments there are worthy of extensive study from the perspective of urban development. From the perspective of industrial ecology and industrial ecosystems, the broad-based support for EIPs and the participation of Gunter Pauli and the Zero-Emissions Research Initiative holds out the prospect of serious development of ecopark attributes in the Downtown Business District. The other three sites present laudable opportunities for development and redevelopment, but it is not clear to what extent such progress would be influenced by industrial ecology or bear its artifacts. 

Brownsville 

Brownsville, Texas is located on the U.S./Mexican border, an area that is slated for extensive industrial development in the not-too-distant future. The town is directly across the border from the growing industrial city of Matamoros, and accordingly one of the underlying themes of the Brownsville EIP is the international transfer of environmental technology and information [ B usiness And The Environment , F ebruary, 1995.] . 

The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) is the lead state agency working on the project, which involves a mixed brownfield/greenfield industrial park, and is the first of the four demonstration sites to have submitted an ecopark development plan to the Environmental Technology Initiative. Other involved parties include the Business Council for Sustainable Development, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, EPA, the local port and airport authorities, private developers, architects, and individual businesses, as well as Indigo Development, which is developing the Fieldbook. There is broad-based local awareness and support for an EIP, partly in response to severe pollution problems experienced in the past. 

According to Joel Youngblood, manager of the environmental technology cooperation program at the TNRCC, the elements that comprise the "eco"-ness of the proposed EIP include: 

• Establishing an inventory of the materials flows of existing tenants with a plan to bring them together to look for synergies and to use material availabilities to recruit tenants. This would be to facilitate industrial symbiosis, or the exchange of byproducts for use as feedstocks; 

• Applying pollution prevention practices to the local industries; 

• Building a treatment facility that would allow the reuse of process water. This is a significant issue as water is scarce along the border; 

• Establishing improved railway links for the transport of materials in order to reduce truck traffic and concomitant air pollution; 

• Energy cogeneration [ Personal communication] . 

Local industry includes GM suppliers of car parts, Levi Strauss, a power plant, and a chemical plant on the Mexican side. Said Joel Youngblood, "we’re assessing the waste streams of existing tenants, to see if we can use this as a recruiting mechanism. We also want to look at a variety of cogeneration and pollution prevention strategies that can reduce costs for park tenants. We don’t know if zero emissions is technologically possible, given the EIP’s tenants. We’re trying to take industries that have problems and zero them out if possible. [ quoted in Business and the Environment, February 1995. p. 4] " 

The Environmental Defense Fund is peripherally involved with the project, in an effort to retrofit an industrial park in Matamoros with processes and technologies that will lower its environmental impact. While it is not the goal of EDF to develop an eco-industrial park, they hope to disseminate the lessons learned from the Brownsville site throughout other manufacturing complexes in Mexico [ Ramon Alvarez, Environmental Defense Fund, personal communication; BATE, ibid. ] . The key to this approach, on both sides of the border, is the ability to demonstrate financial benefit for the businesses involved. Joel Youngblood has identified seven such potential sources stemming from an EIP: 

• Cost savings and enhanced revenues owing to industrial symbiosis; 

• Cogeneration; 

• Recycling and reuse of process water; 

• Cost savings accruing from pollution prevention practices; 

• Tying the introduction of a residential recycling program to recycling facilities in the EIP, thereby lowering startup costs; 

• Waste treatment and disposal costs avoided as a result of the above practices; 

• Favorable publicity ('green image') for companies locating in the park [ Joel Youngblood, personal communication.] . 

At this time, the TNRCC is ready to go forward with an EIP in Brownsville, although obtaining the necessary funding is still a hurdle. Joel Youngblood reports a surprising level of interest in ecoparks throughout the country, a result that holds out the hope of a welcome change in the habits that underlie the manner in which industrial development takes place. 

Baltimore 

The Baltimore EIP project is headed by Ed Cohen-Rosenthal, director of Cornell University's Work and Environment Initiative (WEI). The 20-plus acre Baltimore site is part of an empowerement zone in which the community has begun infrastructure and road repair and demolition of an abandoned housing project [ Elizabeth Kirschner "Eco-industrial parks find growing acceptance" Chemical and Engineering News February 20, 1995.] . The proposed EIP is part of an effort to revitalize an economically distressed area that has been contaminated by leaking oil tank farms. The project is currently exploring a post-consumer loop closing option. "One example of the possible connections is the recovery of tires. We could hire local people to collect tires. In turn, Bethlehem Steel could use the recovered steel, detergent makers could use another byproduct, and the tires could be a source of oil to run Baltimore Gas & Electric [ Cohen-Rosenthal, quoted in Business and the Environment Feb. 1995] ." In addition, six companies are reportedly interested in locating in the Baltimore park, but there is a "need to make sure there's a good fit among them [ Cohen-Rosenthal, ibid] ." 

Cohen-Rosenthal and the Work and Environment Initiative are also involved with a site in Rochester, which would be built around an existing resource recovery facility which is currently idle. WEI and partners propose to use the facility as a hub connecting a wealth of companies already located in the area, with a focus on public-private partnerships, labor-management partnerships, and closed-loop systems and resource recovery [ Business and the Environment Feb. 1995] . The Rochester project is currently on hold [ Cohen-Rosenthal, personal communication] . 

The approach taken by Cohen-Rosenthal and colleagues reveals a different philosophy from that embodied by the Zero Emissions Research Initiative. "For both [Baltimore and Rochester], we're talking about continuous improvement and ambitious stretch goals rather than zero emissions. We want to change the way we generally do business in America. If all we do is establish new greenfield sites, then we don't address the underlying challenge, which is how we make the current locations survive and work. Can we reclaim the dirty areas, and do so in conjunction with the community? [ Cohen-Rosenthal qtd. in BATE Feb. 1995] " In this regard, the Baltimore project, with its focus on a brownfield site, is a complement to the new development slated for the zero-emission EIP proposed for the Downtown Business District of Chattanooga. 

According to Cohen-Rosenthal, the environmental focus of an ecopark does not alter its fundamental business purpose. "Our objective is to ensure that participating companies have the best return on investment possible [ BATE ibid.] " In that spirit, he has set an ambitious goal of 50% above industry average return on investment, along with a dual objective of a significantly decreased emissions for the companies involved. These results, which go hand in hand, are to be accomplished through the employment of an integrated set of four strategies [ Cohen-Rosenthal, personal communication] ." 

• Loop-closing and industrial ecology - 'closing the loop' is expected to result in improved business performance. This approach is limited, however, by the prevailing composition of industry in Baltimore - mostly chemicals, petroleum, and asphalt - which does not produce much waste. 

• Network manufacturing - the organizational analogue of an ecosystem. Firms get together to find out what they can share, with Ed Cohen-Rosenthal acting as the broker. It is his goal to set up a framework for developing interconnections and then to let the community decide who will be allowed to participate. Note that this is Inter-Firm Collaboration (a.k.a. Flexible Networks), a topic whose applicability to industrial ecosystems is the subject of a chapter of this thesis. 

• Cooperation with academics and continuous improvement (in lieu of starting with zero emissions [ Each of these is essentially a slogan, or ideal to seek, so that the difference is largely semantic. The manner in which that ideal is approached, however, is significantly different.] ); and 

• High-performance work-places and union-management cooperation. These themes fit with industrial ecology in that heightened employee participation is very valuable in decreasing resource use and fostering conservation. A goal is to build incentives for environmental improvement and sustainable jobs - a concept that is attractive to unions (Cohen-Rosenthal, personal communication). 

This EIP, like the other three, is in the planning stages. There is a search conference scheduled for late April of 1995, in which stakeholders will come together to investigate the local ecology. It appears that the already established empowerement zone will be designated as the EIP, combining the challenges of ecopark development and urban revitalization. 

Cape Charles 

The Cape Charles site has already received a $4.6 million bond issue subject to business commitments. Having been designated as a special management area by the Department of Commerce, Northampton County has received support from the Small Business Administration. The community has formed and capitalized the Virginia Eastern Shore Corporation to help create and support 50 locally owned businesses centered around conservation and aquaculture [ Kirschner ibid.] . 

It is therefore surprising that Bill McDonough, Dean of Architecture at the University of Virginia and leader of a Cape Charles design charette held in April 1995, was quoted as saying "We have no clue about what an eco-industrial park is. Nobody does. [ The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger Star April 6, 1995] " Ecopark or no, the planned Port of Cape Charles Sustainable Technologies Industrial Park is expected to create 395 jobs directly, including 175 in aquaculture and hydroponics, 100 at a wood mill, and 75 in food processing. Environmental goals include keeping paved areas to a minimum to improve water quality, using natural materials whenever possible, and creating wetlands to improve wastewater systems. [ ibid.] In addition to areas for light and heavy industry, charette designs included bike paths, waterfront shops, parks, and art and conference centers. [ ibid.] "The most important links will be with the people - creating employee ownership and investment in these enterprises, and supporting entrepreneurs. [Timothy Hayes, director of sustainable development for Northampton County, qtd. in BATE February 1995.] " 

EIP Project Results 

Although the actual influence of the ETI Eco-Industrial Park Project is difficult to discern, it is clear that positive development is occurring under its aegis. The realistic result of the PCSD EIP project is to encourage development already underway that is compatible with the EIP concept, to introduce the notion of EIPs to a larger community than would otherwise be exposed to it, and to produce policy recommendations to enable such development. A fourth result, which is more difficult to evaluate, is that the interaction with the Eco-Park Project has provided a goal or vision, albeit hazy, to which development projects can aspire. In that regard, the EIP project has given a name to a set of goals and ideas that are shared to varying degrees by development- and environment-minded individuals throughout, without the constraints of clearly delineating those goals and ideas. It may well be that such a common, though hazy, ideal is very valuable in creating interest, dialogue, and support. 

The Eco-Industrial Park Project has to date reported the following Priority Policy Areas/Expected Lessons Learned: 

• Economic and environmental benefits can be realized by applying the concepts of industrial ecology to current and planned commercial and industrial developments; 

• Co-location is an essential component of the application of industrial ecology concepts and practices; 

• Place-based approaches to economic development enable the integration of local environmental and social objectives with economic and social objectives; 

• Community participation in the earliest design phase of an eco-industrial park development is critical to ensure ownership and to build capacity at the local level to take responsibility for the on-going development and management of the eco-industrial park; 

• The role of government (federal, state, and local) in facilitating the development and management of eco-industrial parks is especially important in the areas of permitting, enforcing and working within a flexible regulatory framework, and the provision of common infrastructure; 

• In the context of environmental management, multi-media permitting of an eco-industrial park as a single facility may enable the most efficient achievement of environmental objectives; 

• Flexibility for park participants to experiment and innovate is the key to determining the environmental technologies (monitoring devices, information networks, process technologies and waste technologies) needed to fully apply industrial ecology principles and concepts; 

• Incentives must be provided to park participants to continuously improve their performance in environmental and social terms. In the environmental arena. those incentives can be provided, in part, through regulatory flexibility; 

• Incentives must also be provided to the community and regulatory agencies to increase the flexibility of regulatory frameworks. In addition to the promise of better environmental outcomes, park participants must stipulate how they will be held accountable and responsible to the community for achieving environmental objectives [ ETI/Eco-Industrial Park Progress Report 1995.] . 

With the exception of noting disagreement with the notion that "co-location is an essential component of the application of industrial ecology concepts and practices," these issues will be taken up later. 

Stemming from somewhat disparate notions of what an EIP is, the four demonstration projects have embarked on development paths which, as a whole, are promising. The different versions of the EIP concept have been influenced by the characteristics of their location, in ways as fundamental as greenfield or brownfield focus as well as by local conditions such as water scarcity. The background and intellectual orientation of the project planners has also been influential, as evidenced by the attention to labor-oriented practices at the Baltimore site (headed by the Cornell Work and Environment Initiative's Ed Cohen-Rosenthal) and the entrepreneurial approach of Chattanooga's drive for Zero-Emissions Manufacturing (championed by Gunter Pauli). These approaches to economic development are therefore not just place-based but personality-based. What all sites do have in common is broad-based local support, an encouraging result. 

The four demonstration projects have been the sites of much movement and activity. The bulk of this activity has been preparatory, but that is to be expected given the difference between where they are and where they want to go. These projects present a very valuable opportunity to put industrial ecology principles into action. Whether or not they do so is very much up to the teams assembled at each site. The Republican Congress puts the availability of further federal funding into question, but private-sector interest appears to be significant and on the rise [ Joel Youngblood, personal communication; et. al.] . If these projects yield tangible results, then they are in a position to give credibility to the new and non-traditional concept and elements of an eco-industrial park. Likewise, a floundering EIP Project can discredit this nascent development approach. Thus those who count themselves as industrial ecologists should hope for and assist successful efforts at these and other EIPs. 

A final result of the EIP Project that bears mentioning is the Fieldbook on the Development of Eco-Industrial Parks, being compiled by Indigo Development. This document is the first comprehensive primer and sourcebook for those on the ground working to bring about such development, and promises not only to aid in such endeavors, but to focus interest and discussion on a clear though flexible picture of what an EIP is. Program delays have prevented the availability of the Fieldbook for the commencement of the Phase II demonstration projects, but this should not detract from its value in the future. 

The one element that is conspicuously missing from this description of EIP Project results is a long list of participating industries. While several companies have been implicated at the various sites, no firm commitments have been reported. This is more of a problem for greenfield sites that need to recruit for the ecopark than for brownfield sites that have a captive group of firms to work with. This issue is absolutely critical, since all the public support in the world cannot substitute for tenant businesses. Developers at the four sites are working on this, and whether or not they will succeed in recruiting viable businesses who are willing to play is the greatest determinant of EIP success. The wedding plans are well underway; all that is missing are the bride and groom. 

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