Mapping and Assessing Industry Clusters for Green Innovation

The “Mapping and Assessing Industry Clusters for Green Innovation” project began in April of 2013 as a partnership between Grenfell Campus, the College of the North Atlantic, and the Newfoundland and Labrador Environmental Industry Association. Its purpose is to develop an online searchable database with geo-spatial capabilities to support the development of the province’s green economy. The database hosts firm-level information for businesses linked to the provision and purchasing of green products and services throughout the province.

The interactive mapping tool’s early design was demonstrated to sector stakeholders in June of 2013. The next phase of the project will include comprehensive sector research, collecting detailed information on the current size, scope, and capabilities of Newfoundland and Labrador’s green economy on a firm-by-firm basis. This information will then be integrated into the database, to be searchable under a wide variety of differing criteria and represented geo-spatially.

This tool will be of significant value in the development of the environmental sector in this province. On a macro scale, its search capabilities and visual representation of those results will be an important resource for the province’s decision makers. The province will gain a much greater understanding of the sector’s size and capacities, which can be used to regularly benchmark the local green economy.

Research Team

Resources

Mapping and Assessing Industry Clusters for Green Innovation in Newfoundland and Labrador. Database and Search Tool Development – Phase II. (2014). White, Schulke, Parrill, and Vodden.