Standards requirements and a roadmap for developing eco-industrial parks in Vietnam

The number of industrial parks has increased steadily worldwide, especially in industrializing and emerging economies. However, most industrial parks are still being planned, built, and managed with little concern for resource efficiency and social and environmental impacts. In response, eco-industrial parks (EIPs) are currently being considered in many developing and transition economies. The absence of a replicable deployment method and a normative standard for EIPs, or even of a widely accepted definition, results in difficulties in finding a flexible, but robust management scheme and related indicators adapted to such complex industrial systems. This paper aims to address EIP implementation and monitoring by providing a new approach to EIP development in Vietnam as part of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization's cleaner production program. It fills a gap in research about how to engage in EIPs at a national level when know-how and general resource efficiency level are low. The methodology proposed establishes a bottom-up participative process adapted to transition and developing economies to foster EIP emergence and define minimum requirements, related indicators, and a continuous improvement method. A two-day expert group meeting took place in Vietnam in September 2016. A participative approach was applied over three work sessions. This national consultation resulted in a joint definition and vision of EIPs in Vietnam, including the social, environmental, and governance challenges to be addressed. It also produced a three-tiered standardization scheme: bronze, silver, and gold. Each tier defines minimum requirements, criteria, and indicators to monitor results and recognize an EIP as such. Lastly, legislation and policy reinforcement to support the standard deployment and control mechanisms has been outlined. The results (the overall methodology and the standardization scheme) can be applied to other countries by international organizations or national governments to build EIP capacities. From a scientific perspective, results from similar experiences in other developing countries will make it possible to compare outcomes and variability in criteria and indicators so EIPs can be recognized as such. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.