Strategies for sustainable development of free trade zones: A case of WFTZ in Shanghai, China

A free trade zone (FTZ) or a export processing zone (EPZ) is an area where some traditional trade barriers such as tariffs and quotas are eliminated and bureaucratic requirements are lowered in order to attract more business and foreign investments. In this paper, ecoindustry theory is applied to a FTZ named Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone (WFTZ) in a unique city Shanghai to look for its sustainable development mode. Based on the consideration of the social dimension as well as ecological integrity and economic efficiency, environmental quality, resource effectiveness and current situation of park material flow of WFTZ are evaluated. The result shows that statuses of atmosphere, water and regional sound almost fit the request of standard, and point source pollution is well treated; land use efficiency, water resource consumption efficiency and energy efficiency go far beyond the average level but still have space to be improved. According to the state of WFTZ, problems are picked out and several methods are used to establish and optimize an eco-industrial park planning. Based on our research, we bring up strategies that should be considered in free-trade-zone design or re-design to minimize the environmental impacts along its life cycle from firm level such as clean production audit, carbon audit and ISO14001 management system, and from park level including symbiotic industrial network construction, material and energy flow planning, and cultural identity creation. WFTZ provides an approach and gives an example to think about how to optimize general industrial parks into eco-industrial parks.