Life-Cycle-Based Multicriteria Sustainability Evaluation of Industrial Parks: A Case Study in China

Jin Yang,Bin Chen,Shiyi Zhou,Meiming Jiang,Jing Qi

doi:10.1100/2012/917830

Abstract

Along with increasing concerns on environmental protection and global warming mitigation, new industrial organization modes such as “Ecoindustrial Park” and “Low Carbon Industrial Park” are emerging. Since ecoindustrial parks and low carbon industrial parks may offer multifaceted benefits to the users, it naturally follows that the sustainability assessment of the industrial parks ought to adopt a multicriteria methodology. In this paper, a multicriteria sustainable evaluation framework is proposed in combination with the life cycle analysis and applied to a low carbon and high end industrial park (LCHE) in Beijing, China. Results show that the LCHE industrial park can contribute to both energy-saving and greenhouse gas emission mitigations compared with other industrial parks. In terms of economic performance, although the economic profits are considerable, the investment per constructed area is relatively high. The results of sustainable analysis of the LCHE industrial park can thus shed light on future upgrading of industrial parks.

Highlights

Industrial parks are defined as the land areas developed and subdivided into plots according to their integrated plans with provisions for roads, transport, and public utilities for the use of a group of industrialists [1]
Based on the concept of life cycle analysis (LCA), which is commonly used to trace the energy consumption and carbon emissions of artificial ecosystems [20,21,22,23,24,25], especially buildings [26,27,28,29,30], this paper aims to propose a sustainability evaluation framework which integrates the environmental impacts, economic output, and resource depletion and apply it to a low-carbon and high-end (LCHE) industrial park in China
Along with the enforcement of the blossom of low carbon economy in China, the eco-industrial parks and low carbon industrial parks have been developing in an unprecedented way

Summary

Introduction

Industrial parks are defined as the land areas developed and subdivided into plots according to their integrated plans with provisions for roads, transport, and public utilities for the use of a group of industrialists [1]. Industrial parks usually function as small cities with complete infrastructural facilities, intermaterial and information flows, and semi-artificial environmental conditions. They assimilate materials from the outside and deliver products to the human society. As a cardinal unit of economic development, industrial parks have been playing an important role in the national development strategies of many countries and have been irreplaceable where economic development is concerned [2]. As many industrial types exist, it opens up an opportunity to establish the most sustainable or ecoefficient industrial park

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion