3 Recommendations for Making Industrial Parks Better for the Environment

The rise of industrial real estate developments has been one of the factors responsible for the extraordinary growth of Asian economies since the latter part of the 20th century.

The tax breaks and the unprecedented convenience of having skilled labor, supply chains, production facilities, and high-quality utilities within a small geographical area proved irresistible to many investors from wealthier countries. This buy-in proved essential for the development of several Asian countries, including the Philippines.

However, the focus on growth and development, the lack of environmentally conscious policies, and the absence of vital green technologies have resulted in many of the so-called Asian Tigers having some of the worst levels of pollution in the world.

Thankfully, much has changed in the design and underlying philosophies informing contemporary industrial parks. Newly-built industrial complexes now tend to incorporate a host of environmentally conscious policies and technologies. Many older parks are also following suit.

Academics, developers, and policymakers are also coming up with new recommendations for industrial real estate developments to meet current and future environmental challenges. Here are just a few of the recommendations that are already being implemented in industrial parks throughout Asia:

Implement Updated “Waste-to-Energy” Infrastructure

Because of all the activity that goes on in industrial parks, these areas tend to produce a lot of solid and chemical waste. Scrap materials from manufacturing, used packaging, and other types of waste also tend to accumulate quickly in industrial parks, which is why these areas often require a robust waste disposal system. Unfortunately, a lot of this waste often goes straight to landfills or even unprepared dumpsites. In many cases, this refuse may also make its way into the surrounding environment.

The alternative was usually to burn some types of waste in an incinerator and to use the resulting heat to power a steam turbine for electrical power generation. While arguably better, these older waste-to-energy solutions still often created a lot of air pollution. Thankfully, as with fossil-fuel-burning plants, waste-to-energy technologies have matured so that much of the resulting air pollution is minimized.

While not a perfect solution, these new types of waste-to-energy plants can solve more immediate problems with solid and chemical waste while also reducing the external energy requirements of industrial parks. They could also be used to supplement existing green power generation facilities that use wind or sunlight.

With fossil fuel prices likely to continue rising, waste-to-energy tech is only going to be more attractive not just for industrial parks but more general civil power generation applications as well.

Provide Walkability and Eco-friendly Transport

Some industrial parks can be massive, a fact that brings its own complications. Larger industrial estates essentially have some of the same problems as conventional cities, in that there needs to be a sustainable way for workers to get to work.

Today, more and more industrial real estate projects are planned specifically to minimize the need for car-based transportation. While convenient, conventional cars that use internal combustion engines are both a safety hazard and a major source of air pollution. Additionally, they are also quite energy inefficient relative to the number of people they typically carry.

More industrial park designers today are either considering or implementing transportation solutions that are less environmentally disruptive. These range from very simple solutions, such as locating employee housing within an easy walking or biking distance from workplaces (a straightforward arrangement in an industrial park) to the use of electricity-powered trams and buses. Even conventional bus and rail systems could be considered more eco-friendly than cars, as these carry far more people for the fuel spent compared to individual vehicles.

Design with Wastewater Recycling in Mind

Industrial and commercial activities generally require massive amounts of water compared to residences. Because industrial parks tend to have a high concentration of manufacturing and commercial businesses, the amount of water these places require can be immense.

Given that the world is set to face a series of serious freshwater shortages due to pollution and climate change, industrial parks must take steps to reduce their demands for clean water from increasingly limited sources.

One way this could be done is through the implementation of wastewater recycling facilities. These facilities are not always easy to set up in cities due to political and technical reasons. But as industrial real estate is generally planned and implemented by one developer, setting up wastewater treatment facilities in industrial parks is far less problematic.

Additionally, the developers could more easily implement wastewater recycling and repurposing as they could develop industrial parks with this activity specifically in mind. This is generally much easier than retrofitting such systems in already built-up cities with complex politics and multiple stakeholders.

More Eco-Friendly Industrial Parks Are in Our Future

With better planning, the industrial parks of tomorrow could lead the way when it comes to eco-friendly policy and tech implementation. Success shown by these more sustainably run parks could even be showpieces that may inform more general urban planning in the Philippines.