| What is Eco-Industrial Networking?
Eco-Industrial Networking (EIN) embraces a systems approach and lessons from nature. In practice, EIN creates collaborative relationships (networks) between businesses, governments, and communities to more efficiently and effectively use resources, such as materials and energy, but also including land, infrastructure, and people.
In practice, this results in:
- More efficient land use planning
- Greater returns for capital investment
- Leveraged partnerships between public and private organizations
- Integral consideration of ecological, social, and economic impacts
- Multi-objective infrastructure systems (utilities / services)
- Sustainable economic development
- Green buildings, technologies & practices
- "Waste = food" synergies
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Our Approach
We are dedicated to on-the-ground strategic solutions. Our approach capitalizes on innovative solutions that worked in other communities, but also recognizes your community’s unique character:
Economic development goals
Local and regional resource base (natural, economic, and social)
Growth constraints and opportunities
Existing and planned local policies and projects
By creating a sound, triple bottom line business case, we can eliminate reports collecting dust on shelves. Your foundation for sustainability is based on your organization’s economic, social and ecological challenges and opportunities. This presents a big picture, systems-based context with which we can evaluate the business case of your sustainability opportunities. Business cases are strengthened with leveraged funding (including ‘green funders’) and partnership brokering.
Our approach is technically rigorous, holistic and multi-disciplinary. We take industrial ecology beyond by-product synergy. Wasted resources, whether they are materials, energy, land or infrastructure, represent an underutilized or misplaced resource. Business, community, and site-specific baseline data directly informs EIN opportunity identification, feasibility screening, cost-benefit analysis, target setting, and measurement. Ongoing stakeholder engagement and capacity building ensures opportunities have broad support and are likely to generate benefits.
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