Laserfiche WebLink
28 | Old Heat CERB Feasibility Study <br />term, strategic investment in competitiveness and reinforces a form of <br />“path dependence.” <br />Path dependence describes how historical development trajectories shape and <br />limit current choices. Regions that grew around a single industry or sector, such <br />as agriculture, resource extraction, or warehousing, often lack the institutional <br />infrastructure, workforce, and supplier base needed to pivot into new high-value <br />industries. Without intervention, these constraints perpetuate underperformance. <br />Conventional approaches to business recruitment or cluster growth, while <br />valuable in established industrial ecosystems, offer little strategic guidance <br />to regions that lack high-wage industry clusters altogether. In such contexts, <br />communities must not only attract or grow businesses but must also select and <br />support the types of enterprises that can systematically improve community <br />prosperity. <br />DEFINING PROSPERITY IN ECONOMIC ECOSYSTEMS <br />In evaluating the full effect of a business’ impact in a community, the <br />multidimensional framework used by the Iowa State University Extension (Fey <br />and Flora, 2006) of eight interdependent forms of capital captures long-term <br />factors that contribute to a region’s <br />prosperity: <br />• Financial <br />• Intellectual <br />• Human <br />• Social <br />• Cultural <br />• Political <br />• Natural <br />• Built <br />A business that contributes to long-term prosperity will strengthen one or more of <br />these forms of capital without degrading the others. Importantly, this prosperity is <br />not measured solely in job quantity or short-term revenue, but in a community’s <br />increasing capacity to shape its own economic future. This capability to <br />effectively shape and change is referred to as a community’s “dynamic capacity”. <br />The activities and enterprises that Old Heat will house are ones that not only <br />contribute to a community’s dynamic capacity but also accelerate the growth <br />of prosperity factors of its economic ecosystem. These types of enterprises <br />are identifiable through using the Regional Contribution Continuum (RCC), as <br />explained below (CWU, BCS, 2025). <br />A TYPOLOGY OF ENTERPRISE CONTRIBUTIONS (BASED ON THE <br />CENTRAL WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY BUSINESS COMMUNITY SERVICES <br />REGIONAL CONTRIBUTION CONTINUUM): <br />Not all businesses contribute equally to prosperity. When looking at the larger <br />impact of a business on a community’s ecosystem on a continuum, it is helpful to <br />use a typology of four enterprise types, each representing a different relationship <br />between a firm and the community in which it operates. The enterprises and <br />activities Old Heat houses can only be Accelerative and Multiplicative. <br />The following models describe impact in terms of value to a local or regional <br />community over time contributed by given type of enterprise. <br />EXTRACTIVE ENTERPRISES <br />Definition: These businesses reduce <br />net community prosperity. <br />They may use local labor, land, or tax <br />incentives, but locate <br />ownership, management, intellectual <br />property, and/or high-skill <br />employment elsewhere. <br />Characteristics: <br />• Profit/value flows leave the region <br />• Limited local reinvestment <br />• No improvement in local skill base or infrastructure <br /> <br />Examples: <br />• Externally owned solar farms: use local land but employ few locals and <br />export profits. <br />• Absentee landlords: extract housing revenue without improving housing