Developing country experience with eco-industrial parks: a case study of the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area in China

To address the pollution that accompanies rapid industrial growth in China, a National Eco-industrial Park Demonstration Program was launched in 2000. This article provides a case study of the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA). The emergence of an environmental institution in TEDA is used as a backdrop to assess how TEDA has transformed itself into one of the top three national eco-industrial parks in China. Following two years of field research, a network of 81 inter-firm symbiotic relationships formed in TEDA during the past 16 years were identified involving the utility, automobile, electronics, biotechnology, food and beverage, and resource recovery clusters. The article assesses the environmental benefits of the key symbiotic exchanges in TEDA and summarizes some unique characteristics of EIP progress in a developing country.