From ChinaDialogue.net:
“If a company can change its attitude towards the environment, it will see wider markets and increased competitiveness, not increased costs – something too few Chinese businesspeople have realised.”
China’s attitude to corporate environmental management has developed in three stages. From the foundation of the People’s Republic in 1949 to the start of the reform era in the late 1970s, the government regarded environmental pollution as a consequence of capitalism – something that socialism would simply not suffer from. The role of enterprises was to manufacture goods in accordance with government planning. There was no need for them to consider environmental issues, nor was there any conception of what corporate environmental management might be.
During the second phase, from the reform era up to the mid-1990s, the government realized the importance of dealing with industrial pollution and put many environmental laws and regulations in place – but their implementation was not strictly enforced. Businesses were unwilling to take the initiative, while the exploitation of loopholes was rife. Also, some local governments opted to tolerate pollution for the sake of maintaining income, and so failed to enforce environmental law. Business paid lip-service to environmental management, but it was not actually implemented. [Full Text]
