Reassembling local-regional industrial networks towards sustainability: an evolving eco-transformation arena in a Chinese industrial district

This paper investigates a pathway for transforming small and medium enterprise-based industrial districts to eco-industrial development in newly industrialised countries. Our framework conceptualises the eco-transformation of industrial districts as a reassembling process of local-regional industrial networks toward sustainability from an 'arenas of development' perspective, highlighting how an emerging eco-transformation arena may challenge existing unsustainable industrial networks. We employ a case-study method to illuminate how such an eco-transformation arena has emerged in Shunde District in Southern China and evolved in the dimensions of continuity, scale and depth of transformation. The results show the pathway is driven by national policy intervention and local government responses. The subsequent development is likely to shift into a fluid, non-linear process unfolded through the continuing interaction of agenda setting, actors and their relationships, strategies and actions performed, translation projects and spaces of negotiation (i.e. the arena's five components) while being influenced by context and place-specificity.

Automated summary

This paper explores the transformation of small and medium enterprise-based industrial districts into eco-industrial development in newly industrialized countries. The study focuses on the emergence and evolution of an eco-transformation arena in Shunde District, Southern China, and analyzes how it is driven by national policies and local government responses. The findings suggest that the pathway is characterized by a fluid, non-linear process shaped by agenda setting, actors and their relationships, strategies and actions, translation projects, and negotiation spaces within the arena, while influenced by context and place-specificity.