SIA Toolbox
GIZ Expertise in Sustainable Industrial Areas
Eco Industrial Development
Eco Industrial Development (EID) is an appropriate strategy to promote sustainable industrial development tackling environmental, economic and social aspects, the three pillars of sustainability, in a balanced manner.One approach to implement EID is the concept of Eco Industrial Parks (EIPs). This concept has first been described in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. The commonly accepted international definition of EIPs, provided by Ernst Lowe and the Asian Development Bank, unravels as follows:
“An eco-industrial park or estate is a community of manufacturing and service businesses located together on a common property. Member businesses seek enhanced environmental, economic, and social performance through collaboration in managing environmental and resource issues.”
GIZ concept „Sustainable Industrial Areas“
As one approach to mainstream Eco-Industrial Parks, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, promotes the idea of “Sustainable Industrial Areas” (SIA). Industrial areas are a motor of industrialisation and technology development worldwide. At the same time, they are often criticised as areas of extended resource consumption and environmental pollution. The concept of “Sustainable Industrial Areas (SIA)” answers to this criticism by balancing economic, ecological and social aspects in industrial areas. This requires in particular management structures, which focus on resource and energy efficiency, environmental protection and social compatibility.The idea of “Sustainable Industrial Area” reflects this orientation and includes social aspects next to organizational, environmental and economical features as an indispensable requirement for a park on its pathway to sustainability.
For GIZ the concept of „Sustainable Industrial Areas“ represents an important element of its advice to partners in the industrial sector. For many years, projects addressing various aspects of sustainable industrial development and sustainable industrial areas have been carried out by GIZ in many countries and significant knowhow and experiences have been accumulated in the organisation. The representatives of SIA projects and experts involved have formed the GIZ-working group on Sustainable Industrial Areas (SIA), which, together with its partners worldwide, permanently works on further developing the SIA concept.
GIZ, World Bank Group and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) have recently partnered to provide further guidance on a broad definition of SIA or EIPs to ensure that they encompass park management, social, environmental and economic aspects.
The three organizations jointly published the International Framework for Eco-Industrial Parks to provide a common understanding of EIPs with minimum requirements and performance expectations as to how an industrial park can become an EIP. The International Framework for Eco-Industrial Parks will guide policymakers and practitioners on the critical elements that will help both governments and the private sector work together in establishing economically, socially and environmentally sustainable eco-industrial parks.
Furthermore, the Practitioner’s Handbook for Eco-Industrial Parks: Implementing the EIP Framework has been developed jointly by World Bank, UNIDO and GIZ. The EIP Practitioner’s Handbook is a practical, step-by-step guide that takes stakeholders through the entire process of operationalizing the International EIP Framework. The Handbook is intended to help practitioners operationalize the International EIP Framework at the national and /or park level, as well as specific EIP performance requirements set in the Framework.
SIA Toolbox
The GIZ SIA Working Group together with its international partners, have developed a great variety of tools to facilitate SIA. GIZ is experienced in the application of these tools and supports institutions and industrial park managers to be acquainted with best practice find the best suitable solutions and to build effective networks with governments, NGOs and neighbouring communities. The SIA approach offers through a wide variety of measures and tools, a range of opportunities to improve the environmental performance of individual companies and industrial areas. Each individual area, already existing or newly planned, requires a specific mix of measures and tools.
The SIA Toolbox is a compilation of these tools & expertise structured along three major phases and ten thematic subtopics. Those three phases are not meant to reflect clearly definable and sequential stages but underline the different interventions necessary at different moments when providing advice to decision-makers on policy level, administrative authorities, industrial park managers and planners. The Toolbox intends to give an overview of GIZ’s expertise and service offer in the field of sustainable industrial areas and their whole life cycle, and shall guide interested GIZ projects and their partner institutions in the use of the developed tools and materials.
Introducing SIA:
When starting to promote sustainable industrial development or to assist industrial areas in their various stages of development, it is important to understand the status quo of industrial areas in the country, such as the management models and the local political, economic, environmental and social framework conditions guiding the national SIA development. This requires for example an analysis/baseline study of the most important aspects and of course formats to raise awareness on different policy levels.
Designing SIA:
A good planning process is one cornerstone of a sustainable industrial area. This applies equally to both, new-planned industrial parks and old ones that need to be retrofitted. Already during the site selection process and master planning of a new park it is important to create SIA friendly framework conditions. To foster sustainability, a wider approach is necessary which comprises all aspects of infrastructure and logistics, supply of energy, water and goods, collection and treatment of effluents and waste as well as provision of communication networks and social services.
Operating SIA:
For sustainably operated industrial areas it is necessary to assist functioning management structures that help to maintain an open flow of information and the creation of transparent structures within the industrial area, as well as to foster a stakeholder process to reach a high level of acceptance of the residents surrounding the industrial area. Ongoing environmental monitoring and climate risk management ensure smooth production processes and minimize possible negative impacts on environment and local communities.
Worldwide SIA Experience
