Environmental concerns are soaring up the agenda in China. Tom Luckock reports
Only six years ago, many of China’s rivers ran a deep red, orange or even fluorescent green, depending upon what the factories upstream were spewing out. Expansion, growth and global market share were China’s sole objectives, to be achieved at any cost. Today, however, Chinese general managers at cement and steel factories will openly discuss the environmental cost of company strategies; local officials whose promotion prospects are pegged to achieving energy efficiency targets actively promote sustainable development projects in their local area, and China’s biggest and most polluting industrials all have internal energy efficiency targets.
