| Industrial Ecology, which is applied in eco-industrial parks, is important theory forsustainable development of industrial park. The theory and practice of eco-industrialpark has developed very fast all over the word since2000, preparing good experiencefor eco-industrial park in China.The eco-industrial park program has been developed for over ten years. Thenational demonstrative eco-industrial parks in China are divided in three types, thesector-integrated ones, the sector-specific ones, and the venous industry, among whichthe sector-integrated eco-industrial park dominates. The government, the market and thecompanies are together devoted to promote development of national demonstrativeeco-industrial parks in China.The study on eco-industrial park in China is still at the exploration stage. Literatureconcentrates mostly on the case study of some given eco-industrial park, while lessliterature pay attention on the development history of eco-industrial park inmacroscopical view. Particularly, there is no generally accepted assessment system foreco-industrial park’s performance in China.This study establishes the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) foreco-industrial park development in China by applying multi-criteria ranking method.First, an indicator system is established by referring to the Standard for Sector-integrateEco-industrial Park. The indicator system includes eight indicators, which are classifiedinto three categories, the indicators of economic development, resource and energyconsumption, and pollution discharge. Second, a two-step normalization method is usedto transform the original values of different indicators. Third, an equal weight method isapplied for aggregation. The EPIs of the24national demonstration eco-industrial parksare analyzed and ranked with2010as the reference year. We suppose a standardeco-industrial park by referring to the Standard for Sector-integrate Eco-industrial Park.The key factors crucial to EPI are investigated, which include industrial structure,development stage of the eco-industrial park, and the type of the eco-industrial parks. Atlast, the policy implication based on ranking the EPI of the30eco-industrial parks isdiscussed. The standard eco-industrial park supposed above, which is designated an EPI of60, is ranked along with the30eco-industrial parks by comparing the EPI respectively.We find that29of the30eco-industrial parks have better EPI than that of the standardeco-industrial park. The Standard for Sector-integrate Eco-industrial Park is still at alow level compared with most high-tech industrial development zones and economicand technological development zones that have accredited as the national demonstrationeco-industrial parks. The management of the eco-industrial parks should be classifiedcarefully according to the categories and stage of development thereof.The indicator system underling the EPI of eco-industrial park in this study is open,and new indicators could be added with the continuously development of eco-industrialpark, by the two-step normalization method proposed. The EPI method can be used toquantitatively evaluate the performance of industrial parks and promote theeco-industrial park development in China. |
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