Eco-Business Approach
Land use patterns, and material, water, and energy flows into and out of industrial zones reveals synergistic business opportunities.

 

How can working together make things easier, cheaper, and more innovative, feasible, and sustainable? This is the basis of the eco-business approach.

The eco-business approach embraces systems thinking and lessons from nature. This approach seeks to create collaborative relationships between businesses, governments, and communities, to more efficiently and effectively use resources, such as energy, land, infrastructure, and people. In practice, this can result in:

  • Transformation of existing industrial parks into eco-industrial parks (like the Pearson Eco-Business Zone);
  • Planning, design and implementation of new eco-industrial parks;
  • Sustainable economic development;
  • More efficient land use planning;
  • By-product synergies or exchanges;
  • Greater returns for capital investment;
  • Green buildings, technologies & practices;
  • Sustainability planning that includes infrastructure and business activity;
  • Leveraged partnerships between public and private organizations;
  • Multi-objective infrastructure; and,
  • Integral consideration of ecological, social and economic impacts.

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    *The term “eco-business” stems from “eco-industrial networking” a tool for implementation of industrial ecology principles.
     

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    “Taking the LEED at Orlando Corp.”

    Orlando has a goal to become an industry leader in offering high-performance buildings to existing and prospective clients. These buildings are designed to be environmentally sustainable, economically preferable and reflect the core values of the company.

    Approach Highlights

    ► Constructing one of Canada’s largest LEED registered industrial buildings at 318,000 sq. ft.

    ► Constructing a 90,000 sq. ft. LEED office building for Medtronics.

    ► Targeting the BOMA BESt standard for existing office buildings.

    Results

    ► Lower operating costs for water and energy.

    ► Healthier work environment and increased productivity.

    ► Reduced construction costs through larger purchasing blocks.

    ► Increased construction efficiency overall, leading to lower operational and capital costs.