Humans are at a critical juncture in terms of how to evolve to deal with
increasingly urgent global ecological and social trends. Questions of ecological
sustainability are inextricably linked to patterns of human production and
consumption. The current economic system operates without regard for unbending
ecological laws. Industrial Ecology is an alternative theory for planning, designing
and managing production and consumption activities to operate within biophysical
limits by applying ecological principles to industrial operations. This thesis explores
implementing Industrial Ecology with eco-industrial parks - sites with a redundant
and diverse set of businesses co-located to operate as ecologically compatible and
economically viable systems. Projects underway are using different concepts,
strategies and organizational forms, but all seek to apply Industrial Ecology
principles. My literature review discusses the benefits, challenges and risks
associated with eco-industrial parks and summarizes key design elements from
existing cases. The City of Richmond is used to analyze the capacity of a municipality
and its policy and regulatory framework for eco-industrial parks based on key design
elements. Structured interviews informed the evaluation of capacity. I found
Richmond's Official Community Plan, Industrial Strategy and zoning bylaw
conceptually support and would not prevent eco-industrial park development;
however, policy lacks economy-environment linkages and does not further Industrial
Ecology. Regulatory barriers to implementation of physical design features of eco-industrial
parks involve zoning, land use patterns, permitting, ownership and water
concerns, but the barriers are flexible in terms of presenting obstacles rather than
being prohibitive. Municipal capacity gaps exist for non-physical design features
relating to information systems and organization and management. I make
recommendations for Richmond to increase eco-industrial development capacity
based on Industrial Ecology theory, other eco-industrial park cases and a personal
interpretation of what is required for sustainable development. Richmond has
significant potential to become a leader in industrial innovation at the level of local
systems to which horizontal and vertical links can be established for achieving long-term sustainability.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/12088 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Henney, Karly Danielle |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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