44 business elite canada
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SEPT/OCT 2014
con plant on the Dawn site owned by Trans-
Alta and now called Blue Water Energy Park.
Sarnia Lambton is also the home of Bio-in-
dustrial Innovation Canada, which is respon-
sible for developing sustainable chemistry for
Canada. They have been very active with an
investment portfolio including project with a
number of pilot plants for testing next genera-
tion chemicals and fuels.
Both the private and public sectors have
come together to contribute to Sarnia Lamb-
ton’s economy. Examples of largest contribut-
ing sites include Nova Chemicals, Imperial Oil,
Suncor Energy and LANXESS. The public sec-
tor has played a key role in economic develop-
ment. The community came together in 2003
in an initiative to buy approximately 120 hect-
ares of land and an office and research com-
plex from the Dow Chemical Company where
their head office was located. They worked
out a relationship with the University of West-
ern Ontario to establish a research park there.
The research park now has 87 per cent oc-
cupancy. In a recent study Western Research
Parks ranked 22
nd
out of 800 research parks in
the world.
Likewise, Lambton College is also on board
with increasing local economic development
