Eco-Equipped Production areas: The Italian way of Eco Industrial Parks

The eco-sustainability of productive settlements is a relatively new topic: only since the 1990s have experiences aimed at reducing the environmental impact of productive activities become widespread. Communities of production and service enterprises that try to improve their sustainability by implementing environmental, economic and social performance can be identified as Eco-Industrial Parks in application of what was theorized by Lowe, Moran and Holmes, in the publication Fieldbook for the development of Eco-Industrial Parks (1996). To achieve eco-sustainability, it is fundamental to plan/design/manage the new and/or renewed production area either through a new project or by upgrading the existing areas, but the morphological configuration/reconfiguration of the area is combined with the rethinking/reorganization of the functions resulting from the new production chains and modes (Lowe, 2003). Achieving EIP status requires both a coordinated planning/management process at the urban and building scale and the coordinated organization/management of each participating enterprise. This paper, after framing the topic in green economy and industrial ecology from the international literature on EIPs, will explore the Aree Produttive Ecologicamente Attrezzate (Eco-equipped Production Areas), which represent the Italian EIP formula. The article will analyze the regulations in force in Italy with the intention of identifying some general Eco-Planning criteria that characterize these types of settlement aimed at drawing up guidelines to support urban planning choices and the implementation of the planned interventions.