Conference Background

SIA Concept

Industrial Park

The concept of "Sustainable Industrial Areas (SIA)" promotes sustainable industrial development by balancing environmental, economic and social aspects.

While industrial areas are a motor of industrialisation and technology development worldwide, they are often criticised as areas of extended resource consumption and environmental pollution. The concept of "Sustainable Industrial Areas (SIA)" of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH answers to this criticism by highlighting organizational, environmental, economic and social features as indispensable requirements for industrial parks on its pathway to sustainability. This requires in particular management structures, which focus on resource and energy efficiency, environmental protection and social compatibility.

Thus, for the GIZ the SIA concept 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, 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.

Conference Concept

The International Conferences on Sustainable Industrial Areas (SIA) bring experts from all over the world together to discuss recent trends, best practices and future development of SIA. The Conferences serve as an international platform for exchanging knowledge about Sustainable Industrial Development of Industrial Areas worldwide. In the past, there have been similar International SIA Conferences in India, China, Indonesia, Turkey, Mexico, Morocco and Egypt.

This year´s International SIA Conference (the 8th conference in row) will take place in Ethiopia and will address the topics “Industrial Transformation, Employment Creation and Environmental Innovation” as Ethiopia and other African countries are strongly committed to move forward on those topics.

The conference is being organized by the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), The World Bank Group / International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Department of International Development/UK Aid – together with the Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC) and the Industrial Park Development Cooperation (IPDC).

The thematic topics of the conferences represent important Ethiopian industrial development goals:

Industrial Transformation

  • Sustainable Industrial Areas are an appropriate instrument for sustainable transition from agricultural to industrial economy
  • Sustainable Industrial Areas act as economic catalysts that provide social and economic infrastructure, build up a favourable business environment, improve competitiveness, generate employment and attract local and foreign investments
  • Sustainable Industrial Areas are able to become the nucleus of broader industrial clusters dedicated to environmental and social innovation and transformation processes
  • Sustainable Industrial Areas are an important pillar of sustainable industrial development in Africa.

Employment Creation

  • Sustainable Industrial Areas are able to significantly generate decent employment and to give economic perspective to job seeking youth
  • Sustainable Industrial Areas offer programs for skills/vocational training and development thus reacting to the needs of companies and investors for skilled labour
  • Sustainable Industrial Areas create indirect employment through embedding in the local value chains and regional clusters thus using local suppliers and service providers
  • Sustainable Industrial Areas strengthen labour and social standards in the industry.

Environmental Innovation

  • Sustainable Industrial Areas aim at managing and mitigating potential negative environmental impacts of industrial production
  • Sustainable Industrial Areas implement appropriate technical solutions to take care that energy and resources are saved, and water, wastewater and waste are managed sustainably
  • Park management takes over responsibility to monitor environmental impacts (air, water and soil pollution), sets environmental standards and gives guidance to the park industries
  • A Code of Conduct dedicated to the principles of sustainability supports an environmental labelling of the park, its manufacturing processes and products creating a valuable marketing argument for embedded park companies.

The SIA Conference will address these topics in form of expert presentations, panel discussions, workshops and an exhibition platform

Target group

The conference addresses the following target groups:

  • Government institutions
  • Local and international industry partners
  • Investors and park developers
  • Manufacturers and International Buyers
  • International donors and support groups
  • Local and international experts
  • Interested public.

Sustainability approach

Since sustainability is an important issue for all hosting organization and the entire SIA community, the organisers of the conference intend to integrate sustainability aspects into the conference planning and while the conference takes place. In this respect, important features are:

Minimising transport during conference

  • Accommodation is recommended in walking distance to the conference venue.
  • Joint collection services will be organised from and to Addis Ababa Airport.

Reducing waste generation

  • Water dispensers in various conference rooms replace drinking water in plastic bottles. Participants will receive individual cups for water tapping.
  • Conference rooms will be equipped with color-coded waste bins for waste separation
  • Writing pads provided to the participants are made from recycling paper.

Motivating participants  

  • to order vegetarian food for their meals (please mark while registering)
  • to sort their waste
  • to use few or no plastic bottle for drinks
  • to switch off electricity when leaving their hotel rooms
  • to save water during showering and toilet use
  • to use hotel towels several days
  • to use the provided bus shuttle or public transport when moving through the city.

Please help us to bring sustainability aspects into the conference!

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