Engineering sustainability

The development of technology parks may be an important instrument in environmental protection, both due to the parks' innovative technologies-based activities and spatial arrangements allowing for the improvement of the quality of urban areas. The ecological aspect of technology parks' operation is already being fully exploited in many European countries and is now attracting more and more attention in Poland as well.

European example

According to Matylda Wdowiarz-Bilska, a senior lecturer at the Cracow University of Technology, technology parks' environmental potential may lie both in the character of their spatial development and the technologies that they help to research and implement.

"The introduction and arrangement of green areas and the application of ecological technologies in technology parks fulfill, to a large extent, the demands of environment protection," said Wdowiarz-Bilska's 2007 article entitled "Ecological aspects of the operation of technology parks."

For one thing, the investments' designs, if sufficiently green, can be a tool in the process of revitalizing post-industrial land, an idea that has already been successfully employed in places including the German Ruhr Area.

"The decision [to develop] a technology park should not only become for local authorities and the local community a decision to create an important working place, enhancing the region's rank, competitive edge and profits, but also a pretext to take care of the spatial structure of [the investment's] neighborhood," Wdowiarz-Bilska wrote.

For another thing, environmental protection technologies are a major activity profile in a large number of technology parks across Europe, with the technology park-based companies' research being focused on areas including prevention of pollution and natural disasters, water processing, waste recycling, use of renewable energy, monitoring of the environment and development of eco-tourism.

Domestic interest

Although Poland still lags behind Western Europe in terms of achievements in the field, ecological issues have already received considerable attention in a number of the country's technology parks and clusters. The Gdynia-based Pomeranian Science and TechnologyPark,  developed on a six-hectare plot formerly housing a public transport depot, is one such example. The park features a biotechnology and environmental protection module and the Bio Lab Centre that researches, among other things, the application of biotechnology as a solution for major environmental problems.

Among companies benefiting from the cooperation between science and industry that the park offers are several firms which are active in the field of environmental protection. Admal & Renewable Energy introduces to the market machines and whole systems, including solar collectors and heat pumps, that make use of renewable energy sources. Flowair Group develops solutions that allow for economical heating of large-capacity buildings. Envia, for its part, conducts ecological and environmental appraisal of underwater environments and assesses investments' impact on the environment, while Environmental Consultancy - H. Roszman offers counsel, research, development and project services related to environmental protection and sustainable spatial development.