A Strategic Evaluation Framework to Assess the Sustainability Level of Industrial Parks in the Post-global Economy

This chapter aims to provide an integrative framework to evaluate the sustainability level of industrial parks in terms of their regional impacts with a holistic approach. Using analysis of secondary data and practitioner observations, several relevant aspects of sustainable industrial parks were identified and categorized in a “process” model that helps to explain possible relationships among them. The Contextual Interaction Theory (CIT) from Bressers et al. The governance assessment tool and its use. In: Bressers H, Bressers N, Larrue C (eds) Governance for drought resilience: land and water drought management in Europe. Springer International Publishing, pp 45–65. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29671-5_3, 2016 was one of the theoretical bases to analyse the stakeholders’ influence to the “process”. The association between the contextual conditions and the measurable quality criteria of sustainable industrial parks is discussed by taking scholars’ and practitioners’ viewpoints. As a result, five domains were identified and constitute the framework: contextual, organizational, environmental, social and economic. Measurable indicators for each of these mentioned domains are suggested. The three last domains form part of the quality criteria component of the model used to explain the framework under a process approach. This framework is named “Sustainable Strategic Evaluation Framework (SSEF)” because it aims to serve as a managerial strategic tool towards sustainability performance of industrial parks. Experts agreed that the set of indicators should be adaptable to the regional context whilst comparable among different locations. Hence, procedures and measurement methods require being applicable to any local condition. While there are a vast number of publications addressing the management of environmental aspects at the company and at industrial park levels, the social aspects have been little addressed at the regional level from a strategic managerial perspective.