A review of lessons learned and best viable practices in the Governance of Environmental Restoration and Industrial (re)Development of large contaminated sites, such as Brownfields and distressed real estates of Heavy Industry Parks

1. Remediation and (re)development of
contaminated sites – Brownfields:
Governance and Strategy

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Agenda
 Environmental Liability 2 - 6
 Lessons learned 07 - 16
 Best Viable Practices 17 - 30
 Case studies in Italy 31 - 39
 Cooperation opportunities with Italy 40 - 44
 Contacts 45 - 47

3. Environmental Liability:
Who’s going to pay and how?

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Environmental Liability
«polluter pays» was established as the 16th principle in the «Rio
Declaration on Environment and Development» of 1992 and
widely adopted all over the World.
It is a just and fair principle, it hits who’s really accountable for
pollution and it prevents harmful behaviours
but
it mostly fails when it comes to the worst cases of soil pollution
(by the point of view of Urban and Industrial planning)

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Environmental Liability
The worst cases of soil pollution are non-spot and historic
contamination, which are mainly the cases of vast areas with
Heavy Industry parks (iron industry, coal industry, petrochemical,
chemical, pharmaceutical, etc.) or highly polluting light industry
parks (tanneries, textile dyeing finishing, etc.).
In the World, these types of parks are the oldest,
 some of them are active since more than one century,
 most of them since after the Second World War,
 many of them are currently decommissioned and defined as
“brownfield”
it mostly fails when it comes to the worst cases of soil pollution
(by the point of view of Urban and Industrial planning)

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Environmental Liability
For these types of parks, the principle “Polluter pays” can’t be
applied because of the these two issues:
1. Pollution occurred mainly BEFORE any law against the
pollution
2. In most of cases, polluters don’t exist any more
if polluters
 do not exist any more ,
 or they are not accountable for,
 or they are nowhere to be found,
who’s going to pay for the remediation and who’s going to pay
for the (re)development of brownfields?

7. Lessons learned
Rules need to deal with invetors’
interests

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Lessons learned
There are two models of Governance for the hierarchy of the
liability for Environmental Damage and, thus, who has to pay for
remediation:
 The EU model, by Directive 2004/35/EC
 The US model, by CERCLA regulation
They adopt the same basic principles, but they chosed two
slightly different strategies to try to get the remediation done,
even if the polluter is nowhere to be found.

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Lessons learned – EU Model
In EU Model, the polluter is liable without fail for the
Environmental Damage and the remediation costs; if the polluter
is nowhere to be found, the liability for soil remediation falls
upon the landowner of the contaminated site (even in case of
unwitting purchase).
The landowner is who holds either the property rights or a long
term concession.

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Lessons learned – EU Model
Judicial litigation led to a distinction between “Liability” and
“Accountability”. Liability for polluter implies also individual
responsibility, criminal infringement and individual obligation to
act in environmental restoration.
Accountability for landowner (if polluter is nowhere to be found)
implies the obligation to pay for the costs of environmental
restoration, and not the obligation to act in restoration.
What happens if landowner doesn’t act in environmental
restoration?

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Lessons learned – EU Model
If the landowner does not procced with the remediation
intervention, the Local Public Administration (local Government)
can act on own motion:
The landowner may sustain a potentially serious patrimonial
damage and the loss of the land.
 distrains the land,
 performs the remediation,
 sells the land after the intervention,
 keeps the amount of the costs for remediation and
 gives back, to the landowner, the remaining amount, if any.

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Lessons learned – EU Model
This mechanism has a sever side effect, causing a strong
speculation on the value of real estates, particularly acute for
brownfields: the landowners adopt any means at their disposal,
in order to cause a forced increase of value of the real estate,
much higher than the cost of the potential remediation.
 If the landowner performs the remediation, the land can be
sold by the landowner, giving a profit out of the
environmental restoration
 If the landowner doesn’t perform the remediation and the
local Government acts on own motion, the local Government
will give back an amount, to the former landowner, that
covers the patrimonial damage.

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Lessons learned – EU Model
With this speculation, the value of the brownfields is usually
unsustainable for industrial investments and it can only be paid
with residential and/or commercial investments.
This mechanism often caused the failure of the Urban and
Industrial Planning of the Local Governments.
But highly polluted brownfields usually can’t be restored to a
situation where residential investments can’t be allowed and
commercial investments often are under vexing constraint (due
to potential health risk), so local Governments usually keep the
intended use of the land for logistics and industrial
investments.

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Lessons learned – US Model
In US Model, the CERCLA regulation states that polluter is liable
for the Environmental Damage and the remediation costs. Under
CERCLA regulation, if the polluter is nowhere to be found, the
landowner of the contaminated site is accountable for soil
remediation, but not always.
The US Government established the Superfund, which purpose
is to pay for the remediation performed by the Public
Administration and, also, to pay for the remediation of the
contaminated sites of the owner who proves to be not liable or
accountable (1. Innocent Landowner, 2. Bona Fide Prospective
Purchaser, 3. Contiguous property owner).

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Lessons learned – US Model
Anyway, the costs for remediation and environmental
restoration proved to be unsustainable for public funding by
any Government, including the US one; the Superfund is able to
cope with just a minority part of the actual interventions it is
requested for, pushing the Local Governments to negotiate
agreements with landowners.
Also this mechanism caused real-estate speculation, because
the landowners are not encouraged to perform the remediation
without, at least, a correspondent increase of value of the Real
Estate.

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Lessons learned – the main issue
 Due to the high costs, remediation can’t be paid by the
Governments,
 if the polluter is nowhere to be found, the accountability falls
upon the landowners, which are pushed to a real estate
speculation, leading to Urban and Industrial Planning failure
for brownfields.
 the real estate speculation shall be taken in account and be
properly managed
 Landowners cannot proceed in soil remediation if local
Governments don’t act to treat the pollution of surface and
underground water (which is the main vehicle of non-spot soil
pollution).
According to the Best Practices in the last decade, the Partecipatory
Planning is the viable solution.

17. Best Viable Practices
Partecipatory Planning and LTS Model

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Partecipatory Planning
In order to prevent real estate speculation, Local Governments
are pushed to (re)design the urban and industrial planning in
agreement with investors and all the potential stakeholders.
Partecipatory Planning is performed by the establishment of
Joint Negotiating and Consultative Committees (JNCC)
According to the Best Practices in UE and US, this mechanism,
called Paretcipatory Planning, has to be led with the goal to
encourage investments, but also to give proper warranties for an
effective environmental restoration.

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Partecipatory Planning - JNCC
In the Participatory Planning, the local Government is firmly
responsible for Urban and Industrial planning, nonetheless Joint
Negotiating and Consultative Committees are established
involving:
 representatives of the local Governments and all the relevant
Authorities
 representatives of economic players and potential investors
(trade associations, bank associations, etc)
 representatives of Civil Society Organizations and workers’
Union

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Partecipatory Planning - JNCC
The tasks and terms of reference of the Joint Negotiating and
Consultative Committees are (part 1/2):
1. to identify the economic delvelopment drivers of the area
2. to identify the potential investment projects
3. to identify the intended use of the brownfields (logistics &
industrial, commercial, residential, agricultural)
4. for each kind of intended use, to identify patterns for the
Enivironmental Impact Assessment and Auhtorization
process for remediation interventions, according to the kind
of investments that can be performed (this leads to design
conclusive procedures that give confidence to investors, in
terms of costs and timings)

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Partecipatory Planning - JNCC
The tasks and terms of reference of the Joint Negotiating and
Consultative Committees are (part 2/2):
5. to identify the need and the the dimensioning of
environmental infrastructures, such as waste water
treatment plants (WWTP) dedicated to industrial efluents,
WWTP dedicated to ground water remediation, waste
treatment facilities for soil pollution treatments, etc.
6. to define Public-Private Partnership projects for the
construction and operations of the environmental
infrastrucutres
7. to prepare Program Agreements between Investors and local
Governments, in order to give mutual guarantees of viability
of the projects, including concessions.

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Partecipatory Planning – Programmatic Agreement
The Program Agreement:
1. It shall be signed by all the relevant Governments and
Authorities
2. It’s binding for the signatories
3. It may provide mutual penalties for the Government and the
investors if they don’t accomplish the provisions of the
agreements
4. It clearly states the liabilities, responsibilities and
accountabilities of all the parties for environmental
restoration
5. It is the preliminary agreement to establish PPP projects for
environmental infrastructures and facilities

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Partecipatory Planning – EIPs/EEPAs
Urban and Industrial Planning through Partecipatory Planning
are ment to realize Eco-Industrial Parks (EIP) and Ecologically
Equipped Productive Areas (EEPA):
1. They are communities of manufacturing and services firms,
concentrated in a single area and linked by a common
management, seeking to improve their environmental,
economic and social performances through collaboration
2. This integrated approach aims to achieve collective benefits
that exceed those obtained by the sum of individual benefits
each company would separately have from the optimization
of its performances.
3. The EIPs/EEPAs have a number of environmental facilities
(WWTPs, IWTPs, ecc.) realized under Public-Private
Partnership
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/archives/sme/support_networks/eips_eepas_en.htm

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Partecipatory Planning – EIPs/EEPAs
Why EEPA are important for Brownfields:
1. Securing the contaminated lots by septa and pile walls,
hinged in the underground layers of clay, may be enough to
safely use the lot for new industrial settlements without
furtherly treating the soil, while surface water is conveyed to
the Waste Water Treatment Plant of the EEPA
2. The Waste Water Treatment Plants are used for industrial
effluents and underground contaminated water; they are
designed to last at least 20 years with ordinary maintenance,
such a long period assures a lower fees for companies and a
long term industrial planning
3. The environmental facilities are not a cost, but a business
investment

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Partecipatory Planning – Process Flow
Local
Government
Stakeholdes Investors
Joint Negotiating and
Consultative Committee
Program Agreement
Urban and Industrial
Planning
PPP
Industrial
Investments
Environmental
Infrastructures
EIPs/EEAPs

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Partecipatory Planning – Benefits
The Partecipatory Planning has a number of strategic benefits:
 it leads to the Urban and Industrial planning based of viable
interests and projects,
 it can give certainty to investors,
 it reduces costs for the safe use of the brownfields and of the
polluted soil, with positive environmental effects up to the
long term
 it creats conditions for a long-term sustainable economic
development
 It assures the leading role of the Government, but at the same
time, it involves the public interest and increases the consent

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Local Territorial Systems
Local Territorial System (LTS) is a model elaborated in Italy, in
order to define strategies of sustainable development for local
Governments.
It was formulated in 2002 within a “Research Project of National
Interest”, funded by the Ministry of Education, Universities and
Research
The LTS Model highlights all the clues or indications (attitudes,
past experiences) and the subjective and objective prerequisites,
which, with the intervention of the local Government, make
possible the creation of a territorial value-added, that can be
measured in terms of increase of services, products, GDP, social
wealth, security and health and environmental health.
It’s best applied at County Level

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Local Territorial Systems
The LTS model comprises four elements:
1) local network of stakeholders – network of interactions
between stakeholders (individual and collective, public and
private, local and regional) in a local territory, where the “local”
is taken to mean the geographical scale which allows the
interactions typical to physical closeness: face-to-face
relationships, trust, reciprocity, etc.
2) local ambiance – the set of local resources, material and
immaterial, of any kind (economical, environmental, cultural,
social, etc.) which have developed over a long period of time.
The ambiance is the container of all the potential resources that
can be exploited by the territorial planning.

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Local Territorial Systems
The LTS model comprises four elements:
1) Local interaction – the cognitive and material interaction of
the local network of stakeholders with the ambiance and with
the environment and its eco-system.
2) over-local interactions – the cognitive and material
interaction of the local network of stakeholders with over-local
networks (regional, national, global)
Local Network of
Stakeholders
Local
Ambiance
Over-local
Networks
Environment
Eco-system
Development Sustainability
Local Territorial System

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Local Territorial Systems and Partecipatory Planning
The LTS model is a powerful tool that can be used, by the Local
Government, to establish and lead the Joint Negotiating and
Consultative Committees.
It is the base to define the term of reference of the JNCC and the
cornerstone used to assess and address its actions.
It make it simple, to investors, to fully understand the
potentiality of investments and, thus, define the boundaries of
the negotiations with the local Government

31. Case Studies in Italy

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Case Studies in Italy
The concept of “EEPA – Ecologically Equipped Productive Area”
was established, for the first time in Europe, by article 26 of the
legislative decree n° 112 of 1998.
Program Agreement is established in the Environmental Law
(legislative decree n° 152 of 2006) at articles 246 and 252bis.
The “Sites of National Interest” were established by article 17 of
the legislative decree n° 22 of 1997. They were the 57 most
over-polluted Industrial parks and brownfields of Italy,
extended to the 3% of the national Territory.

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Case Studies in Italy
With the aim to implement the model of the EEPA – Ecologically
Equipped Productive Area, Program Agreements were
established
Three major SNI are now undergoing the process of
environmental securing and restoration, while a new
industrialization process is based of sustainable and circular
development models
With the new environmental law (2006), Joint Negotiating and
Consultative Committees were established in order to lead the
Environmental Restoration and the Industrial (Re)development
of the major Sites of National Interest (SNI)

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Case Studies in Italy
Industrial Port of Venice
The industrial area of Venice, large
2200 hectares (33000 mu), was
established in the first decade of the
20th Century. After the WWII it hosted
the largest petro-chemical industrial
park in Europe, that operated for
decades up to the late 80s, causing
severe over-pollution of the soil and
of to the lagoon of Venice. During the
90s, the industrial park was mainly
decommissioned.
The Program Agreement for Environmental Restoration and
Industrial Redevelopment was signed in 2012.

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Case Studies in Italy
Industrial Port of Venice
Effluents
Treated water
 contruction and of a WWTP
dedicated to the industrial
effluents, with a loop model
for the reuse of the treated
water
 construction of the wet-land
for water purification, the
largest in Europe, which
improves the quality of the
whole environment in the
area
 The Refinery was revamped
as a bio-refinery for Biofuels
and a investments are
scheduled for bio-polymer
production

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Case Studies in Italy
Porto Torres (Sardina Island)
The industrial area of Porto Torres,
large 1200 hectares (18000 mu), was
established in 1968, for the
production of phenol. Later it was
expanded to produce olefins,
cumene, tripolyphosphate, fibers,
synthetic rubbers and plastic.
The industrial pollution caused severe
pollution, cancers and genetic
anomalies.
The Program Agreement for Environmental Restoration and
Industrial Redevelopment was signed in 2011.

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Case Studies in Italy
Porto Torres (Sardina Island)
 The Chemical park is under
revamping as a bio-refinery
for Bio polymers and Bio
lubricants
 The Remediation project of
the most polluted areas of
the Site of National Interest
was approved in 2014
 The Remediation process
uses a dedicated Waste
Water Treatment Plant

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Case Studies in Italy
Bagnoli (Naples)
The industrial area of Bagnoli, north
of Naples, 750 hectares (11250 mu),
was established at the end of 1800. In
1910 a large steel plant was
inaugurated. Later a plant for the
manufacturing of cement and
asbestos products was established in
the area. The decommissioning
process begun in the 70s, in the 80s
all the harmful productions were
dismissed and in the 1992 all the
manufacturing activities.
A number of Program Agreements were signed after 1997, the
definitive one in 2015.

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Case Studies in Italy
Bagnoli (Naples)
 The Industrial Park will be
converted in a Urban Park,
as it is now in a high valuable
urban area
 In 1996 was inaugurated the
City of Science (Città della
Scienza) a science museum
and a business innovation
and acceleration center
 the area will also be
enhanced for sea tourism

40. Cooperation Opportunities with
Italy

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Cooperation Opportunities
Urban and Industrial Planning: EIPs/EEPAs design and
implementation, integrated waste water treatment and waste
treatment, etc.
Operational assistance: Risk Analysis and Hazard assessment,
Characterization of contaminated sites, planning for securing
(temporary and permanent) and for remediation of the
contaminated sites, implementation and monitoring of
remediation, environmental monitoring, etc.
Governance and Capacity Building: Partecipatory Planning
guidelines, Joint Negotiating and Consultative Committees
management, Sustainable Development Strategic Planning for
Local Governments, etc.
Dissemination and Technology Matchmaking: Forums,
Workshops, Training Course, trade shows, etc.

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Cooperation Opportunities
Since 2007, Remtech Expo is the Italian trade show for soil
pollution remediation technologies, including water
remediation, hydrogeological risk and instability and coastal
erosion and protection. Remtech Expo involves Italian and
European Companies, Professionals, Trade Associations, NGOs,
Public Administrations, Universities and Institutions, which have
the opportunity to acquire and to promote some of the most
innovative knowledges and technologies.

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Cooperation Opportunities
 EEGEX is an Italian non-profit and non-governmental
Organization, whose statutory purpose is to promote the
international exchange of technologies and know-how in the
areas of Environment and Energy.
 EEGEX helps all the interested Organizations (Companies,
Research Facilities, Universities, Public Administrations and
Agencies, ect.) to establish and develop relationships with
potential partners, aimed to start up and manage initiatives of
technology and know-how transfer and business agreements.

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Cooperation Opportunities
 After the agreement with the Foreign Economic Cooperation
Office of the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection
(MEP/FECO), Remtech Expo is HUB Partner for Italy of 3iPET,
the FECO's "international, intelligent, integrated and
professional service platform for environmental technology"​.

45. Contacts

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Contacts
3iPET HUB for Italy – steering committee
Ms. Patrizia Bianconi
International relations manager at Remtech Expo – Ferrara Fiere
p.bianconi@3ipet.it
pbianconi@ferrarafiere.it
Mr. Simone Padoan
Secretary General at EEGEX – Energy Environment Global Exchange
s.padoan@3ipet.it
s.padoan@eegex.com
www.3ipet.it
staff@3ipet.it

47. Thank you
谢谢