Regionalisation and sustainability in the field of industrial production

Regional business concepts are said to have huge potential to support susta inable development in industrialised countries (e.g. Stransfeld, 1999). How ever, whereas efforts have been made to implement regional concepts within agriculture and forestry, empirical findings show that regional concepts ar e only of minor importance to managers within industrial production (Rentz et al., 2000). Considering this situation, the aim of the present article i s to explain why regional business concepts have rarely been implemented in the field of industrial production. Therefore, in the course of the presen t article, a raster for the identification of relevant barriers on a person al, enterprise, inter-firm and macro-economic level will be developed and a pplied. Subsequently, suggestions for a set of measures to overcome these b arriers to regionalisation will be given. The results have been identified in the framework of a questionnaire to about 30 decision makers of industri al companies within research, a project promoted by the German Ministry of Education and Research.