Sustainable Location Development: How Do Investment Promotion Agencies Go About Attracting Sustainable Foreign Direct Investment?

Both emerging and OECD markets are constantly making efforts to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). Over the past few decades, investment promotion has steadily become more professionalized. This chapter identifies best practice by the investment promotion agencies, which that integrate sustainability most effectively into their FDI promotion policies. The environment for investment promotion agencies is currently undergoing rapid changes, which are giving rise to new business models and practices. At present, the latest generation of IPAs can only be found sporadically around the world: These fourth-phase IPAs take sustainability criteria into account more or less explicitly in their investment promotion activities. Such sustainability criteria relate to economic, social, and environmental factors.