Project
Eco-Industrial Greenhouse Parks: Towards sustainability and collaboration in Flanders (Veerle Verguts)
This research is a case study of the interplay of actors and process in the development of eco-industrial parks (EIPs). EIPs are industrial parks where firms increase their sustainability performance through coordination of resource management and creation of inter-firm linkages.
This research applies different change theories in analysing eco-industrial greenhouse parks in Flanders and the Netherlands. Belgian and Dutch policy makers find in greenhouse parks a solution for problems in greenhouse horticulture. Development processes of single eco-industrial greenhouse parks are analysed with different change theories: episodic planned change, transition management and continuous emergent change. Change factors that are identified as important for the process pace of EIP development are: knowledge of the system; motivation for change; the extent of planning; evaluation and monitoring; change agents; and actor participation. Sense-making literature and the configuration approach are used as instruments in identifying the role of the actors in the process, e.g. how the actors behave, how they see the development process and how this processes, the change factors and hence the EIP developments are influenced by their behaviour and interactions.
Supervisors: Katrien Termeer, Art Dewulf and Joost Dessein (ILVO)