A study of assessment indicators for environmental sustainable development of science parks in Taiwan

This study adopted the ecological footprint calculation structure to calculate the ecological footprints of the three major science parks in Taiwan from 2008 to 2010. The result shows that the ecological footprints of the Hsinchu Science Park, the Central Taiwan Science Park, and the Southern Taiwan Science Park were about 3.964, 2.970, and 4.165 ha per capita. The ecological footprint (EF) of the Central Taiwan Science Park was the lowest, meaning that the influence of the daily operations in the Central Taiwan Science Park on the environment was rather low. Secondly, the population density was relatively high, and the EF was not the highest of the Hsinchu Science Park, meaning that, while consuming ecological resources, the environmental management done was effective. In addition, the population density in Southern Taiwan Science Park is 82.8 units, lower than that of Hsinchu Science Park, but its ecological footprint per capita is 0.201 units, higher than Hsinchu, implying its indicator management has space for improvement. According to the analysis result above, in the science parks, the percentages of high-energy-consuming industries were rather high. It was necessary to encourage development of green industries with low energy consumption and low pollution through industry transformation.