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The researchers have concluded that the benefits of an EIP expand when
companies are engaged in greater levels of cooperation as well as when they
are located at a closer proximity to one another. Meanwhile, the opportunities
to improve economic and environmental performance expand when an effec-
tive communication is established between members of the park so that com-
panies are informed about how they might work together to improve the
“industrial ecosystem” in their community.
Also, the researchers have noticed that in scenario 2, companies can
achieve economic and environmental benefits through pollution prevention
techniques that can be implemented with little or no investment. These oppor-
tunities require no cooperation or dependency between companies and they
can be done at the unit level. In fact, this finding supports the vision that the
industrial ecology approach is the net result of interaction among zero pollu-
tion, cleaner production, life cycle analysis, and eco-industrial parks (Peck,
1998; El Haggar, 2005).
From the previous analysis, some elements that play an important role in
the success of any EIP project have been identified by the group of researchers
and these elements are:

• The first and most essential input to the EIP is information about
members’ operations.
• The success of the EIP requires that members are open to depending
on each other.
• To achieve the greatest economic benefits, the EIP will require sub-
stantial investment in infrastructure.
• The economic and environmental benefits to the EIP and the com-
munity are greater if the potential symbiosis opportunities are rec-
ognized during the planning stages of a park or plant.

Naroda Eco-Industrial Park, Ahmedabad, India
This case study is presented by UNEP. Naroda industrial estate is located in
Ahmedabad in the northwest of India. Ahmedabad is the largest city in the
state of Gujarat and has played an important industrial role in the estate because
of its important textile industries. However, in the 1980s many of the textile
industries in Ahmedabad closed. The city promoted other industries such as
chemical, plastics, engineering, and pesticides industries. In the 1980s lots of
textile chemical dyestuffs manufacturing was transferred from Europe and
North America to India and other countries in Asia. Today almost 60% of
dyestuffs exports from India are manufactured in Gujarat with approximately
half coming from three industrial estates in Ahmedabad: Vatwa, Odhav, and
Naroda.
Naroda industrial estate was established in 1964 by the Gujarat Industrial
Development Corporation. Today there are approximately 900 industries
located in Naroda industrial estate. They employ nearly 30,000 employees