Background Industrial areas designated in zoning regulations are often located in suburban areas and supplied with infrastructure appropriate to carrying-out production and related business activities. Industrial areas in which the presence of SMEs is predominant, are also often equipped with centralized environmental management facilities in order to minimize the environmental impact and reduce costs. These so called “Ecologically Equipped Industrial Areas” represent a good example of intervention aimed at protecting the environment against industrial pollution by exploiting the well developed relationships between local enterprises. However, although the theoretical potentialities of an “ecologically equipped area” can be defined, very few industrial areas put these into practice and there is no official standard on how to set-up and manage an Ecologically Equipped Industrial Area. Objectives The main objectives of the SIAM project were: to integrate the sustainability principles in locating, settling and managing industrial areas; to develop innovative methods, based on a preventive approach, for reducing environmental impacts and favouring the development of clean technologies in these areas; to promote the continual improvement of environmental performances, for the entire industrial areas and, and for the individual local enterprises, especially those of small and medium size; to encourage a collaborative climate and an effective relationship among the local authorities, citizen and industry; to create the conditions for increasing employment and creating new professionals qualified to design and manage sustainable industrial areas. These objectives were pursue by defining and applying a new Model of Sustainable Industrial Areas based on using, adapting and integrating three different community environmental policy instruments: Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) according to the Directive 2001/42/EC; EMAS according to the Regulation 761/2001/EC; Environmental Accounting and Freedom Access to the Information on the Environment according to the Directive 90/313/EEC. Results The project achieved the following main results: Involvement in EMAS procedures of 8 organisations from 8 different industrial areas in Italy: two EMAS registrations and one ISO 14001 Certification were obtained. Creation of an integrate tool taking into account Directive 2001/42/EC; EMAS according to the Regulation 761/2001/EC; Environmental Accounting and Freedom of Access to Information on the Environment according to the Directive 90/313/EEC. Production of guidelines for implementing the developed tool. Use of the tool in industrial areas in Italy that were not involved in the project (Bologna, Parma, Modena, Marsala). The developed tool meets current needs in Italy and is expected to be further improved in the coming years within the industrial areas already involved as well as in other areas still to be planned. A transnational proposal has been presented, by a different partnership, for a new LIFE+ project that aims to promote the dissemination of the tool at European level and also in other Italian Regions. The innovation and demonstration value of the project mainly involved the implementation, in an integrated way, of three environmental policy instruments: SEA, EMAS and Environmental Accounting. When the project was approved, Italy was substantially lacking any implementation of sustainability principles in industrial areas. The developed tool aimed to change this scenario. The project partners came from different parts of Italy, some of which were characterised by low levels of innovation in the management of industrial areas. The project allowed not only for the development of standard tools to promote sustainability, but also the transfer of the principles and tools to other industrial areas. The project also fulfilled its aim of training new professionals. Two courses: “Designer of Sustainable Industrial Area” and “Manager of Sustainable Industrial Area” – are expected to increase the number of people working on the implementation of the new tool in various industrial areas in Italy (the beneficiary estimates that three people for each area will be needed). However, this outcome has yet to be verified.