Suistainability in the value proposition of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation : Is the future already happening?

Areas of innovation are defined as “places designed and curated to attract entrepreneurial‐minded people, skilled talent, knowledge‐intensive businesses and investments, by developing and combing a set of infrastructural, institutional, scientific, technological, educational and social assets, together with value added service, thus enhancing sustainable economic development and prosperity with and for the community.” (NIKINA; PIQUÉ, 2016)Additionally, a science park is “an organization managed by specialized professionals, whose main purpose is to increase the wealth of its community by promoting the culture of innovation and the competitiveness of its associated businesses and knowledge‐based institutions. To enable these goals to be met, a Science Park stimulates and manages the flow of knowledge and technology among universities, R&D institutions, companies and markets; it facilitates the creation and growth of innovation‐based companies through incubation and spin‐off processes; and provides other value‐added services together with high quality space and facilities.” (United Nations)As areas with high demand on creativity and networking, the value proposition of STP/AOIs (ScienceParks and Areas of Innovation) follows the recent trend described in the Location Theory, in which soft factors such as business environment and availability of intellectual capital are highly significant incontraposition to traditional hard factors, like location costs and proximity to consumer market (MURPHY; REDMOND, 2008).This evolution can be observed, for instance, in the “The Linköping Declaration”, the resulting document of the 2014 International Symposium “The Value of Science Parks”, held in Sweden. The document states that the critical success factors for future science parks are Business Development Support,Attractiveness, Networking, Open Innovation, Smart Specialization and Internationalization.However, any trend on innovation environments, as well as in any other human activity, takes place in a broader context, within planetary boundaries. In this sense, sustainable development issues, including climate change, also applies to STP/AOIs as a necessary condition for future progress, and therefore,environmental matters can be treated as both a threat or an opportunity, but never ignored.