Pieter Pellenbarg

Sustainable Business Sites in the Netherlands: A Survey of Policies and Experiences

The concept of eco-industrial sites or sustainable business sites is a noteworthy newcomer in the family of location types. The origin of this type may be considered as a consequence of two development trends, namely the segmentation of the location market on the one hand (an outcome of changing locational tendencies) and the aim of government policy to integrate economic and environmental objectives on the other. In this paper, both trends are analysed. The central aim is to establish the progress of implementing the newly developed location concept in practice and to identify factors of success and failure. The situation in the Netherlands is used as a frame of reference. After the outline of the background, the concept of sustainable business sites, including its definition, is considered and criticized. Then a tentative inventory is presented of the approximately 60 eco-parks which have developed in the past 10 years in the Netherlands, including the results of a questionnaire survey of these 60 parks. To get a better insight into the factors which determine success or failure, short case-studies of a number of the parks are presented. Finally, a number of conclusions are presented, including a discussion of an alternative view of the concept of eco-industrial sites which applies to the continuity of both firm and environment.

Regional marketing to change regional images: the example of the Groningen province campaign

Regional Marketing to Change Regional Images: The Example of the Groningen Province Campaign An important element in the urban and regional development strategy of many local and regional governments is geographical marketing. The process of geographical marketing combines promotional, spatial and organisational activities, and can be aimed at various groups. From 1989 onwards, the province of Groningen, in the northern part of the Netherlands, has pursued such a geographical marketing campaign. This campaign, which is still being carried on, has used various means of communication: advertisements in newspapers and magazines, and radio and television commercials. It has been aimed at entrepreneurs and at the general public as well. An ex ante study of the public image of Groningen was carried out in 1988, before the start of the campaign. For this purpose, a random sample of the Dutch population was inquired by telephone. Since then, similar inquiries were carried out every 2 years, in order to measure the ‘effects’ of the campaign. In these inquiries, the image of the provinces of Friesland and Noord- Brabant (considered as ‘competitors’ in the place marketing arena) was measured along with that of Groningen, and used for reference. The data set now reaches up to the year 2005. The availability of this kind of data for a period of 17 years, measured at regular intervals, provides a unique opportunity to study the development of regional images through time, and to find suggestions for the best possible way to continue the marketing campaign. In this paper, the data of the inquiries will be analysed. The first question to be answered in the paper relates to the pace and the nature of the changes in image, observed in all three provinces. The second research question specifically deals with the influence of the marketing campaign on the image of Groningen.

A system to identify local industrial development potentials

Abstract The core of this article is the description of a computer model which can identify local industrial development potentials by comparing detailed empirical and statistical data about location demands of industrial sectors and location conditions of places. A case study, using the model, is carried out for a border region between the north‐east Netherlands and north‐west Germany (the EDR region). The description of the model and its application in the EDR is preceded by a general discussion about location analysis in modern economic geography, and concluded by sections which describe the future scope as well as the limits of the quantifying approach in location decision analysis.

Firm Migration / Relocation

City logistics represents more than the mere transportation of goods within urban areas. It can be defined as any service provision contributing to efficiently managing the movements of goods in cities and providing innovative responses to customer demands. As such, city logistics does not apply well to the way goods are currently delivered and picked up in cities worldwide as a significant portion of these activities remains inefficient and impact urban environments. As urban freight challenges increase in cities worldwide, new logistics services have emerged, especially in areas having high levels of activities such as city centers. Although not yet significant in terms of volume and environmental benefits, these practices provide new directions for more sustainable city logistics activities, with diverse applications around the world.