Unfolding eco-industrial parks through niche experimentation: Insights from three Italian cases

This article aims to understand and explain how eco-industrial parks can unfold over the traditional industrial production systems. Differentiating between the domain theory and method theory, we present an analytical framing that draws upon the strategic niche management perspective from the sustainability transitions field as the method theory, and then contribute to the field of industrial ecology, which is the domain theory behind eco-industrial development. With the experimentation concept being central to our conceptualisation, we consider the journey of the industrial production systems to become eco-industrial parks as niche experimentation and eco-industrial parks as niches. Employing a qualitative multiple case study, we analyse the experimentation within three cases from Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna regions of Italy. The results of our analyses indicate that the continuous experimentation of the eco-industrial park practices within a broad actor-network, through learning processes, leads to shared expectations and visions regarding environmental benefits and economic gains of industrial ecology, which enable the eco-industrial parks to unfold. Still, there is no single rigid model that explains the unfolding eco-industrial parks, because the continuously interacting and interdependent niche-building processes assemble the niche experimentation journey, which is also shaped by the spatial context.