Barriers towards promoting eco-industrial
parks in China: Perspectives fromsenior officials at national industrial parks
Yong Geng
Institute of Applied Ecology
Chinese Academy of Sciences1China’s industrial park development
Amount: Over 6600 industrial parks across the wholecountry;
Different levels, including national, provincial, municipal
and county level;Types: Economic development zones, High-tech zones,
export processing zones, free trade zones;
Categories: Sector-integrated industrial parks, sectorspecific industrial parks, venous industrial parks(recycling parks);
Involved agencies: Ministry of Commerce; Ministry ofEnvironmental Protection; National Development andReform Commission.
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Location of national development zones

3National Eco-Industrial Parks

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National EIP Indicators

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National circular economy industrialparks Indicators

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National survey for industrial parks
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Investigation Process• The sample sites include 50 from the eastern China, 30 from
central China and 20 from western China. This sample
dispersion roughly matches the geographical distribution of
the 140 national industrial parks, which include 73 parks ineastern China, 40 parks in the central China, and 27 parks inthe western China.
• Respondents typically included the general director, the vicegeneral director in charge of environmental protection andenergy savings, and directors from three related bureaus
including the environmental protection bureau, the planningbureau, and the financial bureau. These officials are critical for
promoting EIPs due to their administrative authority.
• Investigation period: from April 9 to May 31, 2012.
• Collected questionnaires were from 51 industrial parks,
including 217 senior officials.
8Questionnaire for external factors

9Questionnaire for internal factors

10Factor Analysis
An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using maximum likelihood
with a varimax rotation was used to extract the theoreticaldimensions (factors) of external and internal barriers forpromoting EIPs.
Both the scree test and initial eigenvalue test indicates threefactors for external barriers explaining 77.9% of the inherent
variation.
A further reliability test is conducted to examine if the items
should be grouped into their respective factors.
If a reliability coefficient alpha value is over the benchmark valueof 0.70, we can conclude that items grouped into respective
factors are valid.
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Results：General descriptive statistics

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Results：General descriptive statistics

Main findings from General descriptive statistics• Six factors have similar values between 2.97 and 3.23
approximately in the middle of the effect range scale. Such
results show that all barrier factors have partly significant effects
on EIP development.
• Capital support dependency barriers have the highest mean valueof 3.23 from amongst the three external factors while capability
has the highest mean value of 3.21 from the three internal factors.
• Three items within this factor are related to technology andachieve the highest mean values ranging from 3.25 to 3.36 while
the other three items have similar mean values as the other two
external factors.
• One internal item related to technology, enterprises lacking
capabilities on energy saving and pollution reduction fortechnology development, achieves the highest mean value of
3.34 from among all external and internal items.14

Cluster analysis results• Hierarchical analysis is used to identify the cluster number. Using theagglomeration schedule for the coefficient changes of individual clusters, a threecluster solution is deemed most appropriate. The sample Chinese officials are thenassigned to the three clusters. After the hierarchical analysis, a K-mean clusteranalysis (a non-hierarchical clustering technique) of the six factors was used tomake this assignment of the industrial park management officials into clusters.
• To assess whether the mean values of all the factors and items were significantly
different across the three clusters, one way ANOVA tests were performed.
• The results in Tables 3 show that all factors and items are significantly different
among the three clusters at p<0.001.
• 172 of 210 appear in Cluster 1, and have mean values between 3.08 and 3.35 forthe six factors, as well as values between 3.04 and 3.46 over all the items.
• Responses in both Cluster 1 and 2 have similar regional distributions to the sample
of 51 industrial parks across eastern, central, and western. Seven of nine responses
in Cluster 3 appear from respondents located in the less developed regions. Such
results indicate that officials from less developed areas, though having a low
percentage of the total sample, perceive greater barriers due to both lack of15
external support and internal resources/capabilities to promote
EIP development.

Implications related to factorial and descriptive Results• Internal industrial park capabilities for energy conservation and pollution reduction arelimited. Thus, these capabilities and the need to develop them, is a significant barrier for
developing EIPs in China.
• Technological development and diffusion is difficult to complete by a single entity, thus interfirm networks and innovation within industrial parks are important for technology
development.
• Promoting joint technology development among enterprises including those in different
industrial parks should be strengthened. Innovative measures that can address internal
capability concerns are needed for effective EIP transformation, including supporting
technological cooperation among different industrial sectors, preparation of nationalguidelines on promoting industrial symbiosis in key sectors, and developing training andbenchmarking capabilities through either centralized or decentralized knowledge sources.
• The capability internal barrier has the highest average values among the three internal
factors. Besides technological concerns, most industrial parks also lack both human andfinancial resources to support EIP development.
• Specific clusters within the industrial parks experience lower barriers when seeking promote
EIP development. The situations that cause these EIPS to effectively perceive fewer barriers(and the assumption of going forward with EIP development) should be investigated. The
diffusion of practices that allow them to address and reduce these barriers is something thatshould be pursued. This situation will probably require a centralized authority with the reach,resources and power to help in this diffusion.
• One of the contextual issues that may aid or serve as a barrier to loweringbarriers are16

Implications of cluster analysis• Most officials in Cluster 1 have a standard perception of barriers while a few officials in Cluster 2
are less stressed in terms of EIP barriers perceived. Nine officials, most from less developed
regions, are highly stressed with respect to EIP barriers perceived. Such facts indicate that regional
disparity need to be addressed by the central government.
• The strict evaluation system prior to the application process and after the approval of the projectmakes most industrial park officials hesitant to apply for demonstration project funding.
• Eastern industrial zones can more easily address many of the barriers due to greater experienceand knowledge. They have become more adept at getting external support and also effectively
allocating internal resources for EIP development.
• With lessened EIP knowledge and experiences, zones in central and west China will find thebarriers overwhelming, especially locating and attracting external support. Part of these issues may
be the lack of developing networks and connections that may be necessary to traverse thegovernment bureaucracy, develop support from communities, involve industrial partners, andlocate and implement appropriate technology and processes. As a result, officials feel high externalbarriers.
• Simultaneously, many these industrial zones face pressures to economically perform, withenvironmental issues that do not contribute to direct and immediate economic benefits, taking abackseat. Overall, they also lack human resource and technological expertise, while allocating few
resources to EIP development. Given these characteristics, officials in these zones also feel(perceive) high internal barriers.
17Conclusions• Senior officials in most national industrial parks in China have been familiarized with the EIP
concept but have differing experiences in both external and internal barriers for successfully
implementing EIPs.
• Most senior officials highlighted technology and capability capacity building barriers as key
issues facing successful EIP implementation. Few senior officials from leading industrial parks
overcome all barriers, but their experiences on how they overcome some of the barriers they
do overcome can be valuable to other industrial parks.
• The mechanisms to acquire and build knowledge on the EIP implementation barriers faced
and how they can be overcome are not well developed and disseminated to other industrial
parks.
• Chinese governments have sought to provide financial support for technological innovation
on energy saving and pollution reduction, however, how to encourage joint technology
development or cooperation among enterprises and industrial parks still requires further
investigation by government officials and policy researchers to determine the most effective
approaches.
• EIP development is a comprehensive effort, and needs support from all stakeholders. Thus,
capacity building programs should cover not only officials, and key managers from tenantcompanies, but also the public and investment organizations. A learning system with acommon platform would be helpful for information sharing and communication among
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industrial parks.

Thank you for yourpatience.

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