A STUDY OF INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY AS A TOOL FOR GREENING KENYA’S SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES
Abstract for Doctoral Research Proposal
By Kelvin Khisa
The Kenyan Government has identified industrialization as one of the key pillars of economic growth
and wealth creation. As a result, it has embarked on strengthening the country’s industrialization
infrastructure. One of the target areas for strengthening is the Export Processing Zones (EPZ) that is
currently being restructured to meet the country’s emerging challenges of industrialization. The adopted
EPZ restructuring approach may be deemed to be unsustainable due to its failure to adopt the industrial
ecology (IE) concept. Current designs of industrial parks are guided by the traditional economic
philosophy of extraction and dumping with severe environmental consequences.
IE should form the basis for the design of industrial parks as envisioned in the Kenya Vision 2030. Its
basic philosophy is to change linear production processes into closed loops where used products, byproducts and wastes of one process are used as resources for another process. Such a design should
imitate the cyclical use of resources by natural ecosystems. This means that the special economic zone
(SEZ) enterprises should constantly be seeking to establish and sustain inter-firm networks, not only to
minimize waste and reduce pollution, but also to look for all types of innovations that seek to improve
their operational efficiencies. In an IE system, the focus is on sharing and collaboration between zone
enterprises. In order to find new uses for waste, so that the waste generated has value to customers
elsewhere within the industrial system, managers have to know who has what (supply), who needs what
(market), who could use what (potential market) and who could produce something if somebody else
wanted it (potential supply).
This study seeks to determine the types of industrial clusters of the Athi River SEZ; analyze their material
flow patterns and environmental performance of the cluster’s selected firms; and assess the types and
quantities of materials and infrastructure for inter-firm material re-use and exchange. It will then
determine institutional, policy and technological barriers to the accelerated uptake of this concept by
the Kenyan SEZs.
To achieve this goal, the study will rely on the use of both primary and secondary data in qualitative and
quantitative terms. Descriptive quantitative data will be analyzed through the trending of raw material
consumption, energy use and waste generation levels; grouping of enterprises that use identical
resources; classification of product lines within and outside the SEZ; and determination of material flow
patterns, while inferential data will be analyzed using correlation that will seek to determine the degree
of relationship between waste generation levels and the potential for waste exchange; and regression
analysis to determine whether the potential for industrial ecology is a function of the quantities of
generated wastes and by-products or the availability of knowhow, technology, functional networks or
infrastructure. Qualitative data will be analyzed through the thematic approach, specific enterprise case
analysis, content analysis, categorization, contextualization, and determination of similarities and trends
of resource consumption and waste generation.
Key Words: Industrial Ecology; Waste Re-use; Waste Exchange; Special Economic Zones