Environmental Challenges & China's Green Choice

Speaker:
Ma Jun, Director, Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs

Over the past thirty years China's economy has grown drastically, putting considerable pressure on the environment. Pollution of air, water and land has posed threat to the health and well-being of millions of citizens and to the sustainability of the nation. Tapping into China's expanding push for greater environmental transparency, the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) developed the ‘Pollution Map Database' in 2006 to facilitate public participation in environmental governance. The public database has increasingly been used by a broad range of stakeholders as a tool to monitor the environmental quality as well as corporate performance in China.

Collaborating with more than 30 local NGOs, IPE has been interacting with large corporations since 2008 to green their global procurement. This NGO network, known as ‘Green Choice Alliance', also works to encourage consumers to pay attention to the environmental behavior of manufacturers. Ma Jun will discuss how public pressure and greater stakeholder scrutiny catalyzed by the Green Choice Alliance have motivated hundreds of factories with poor pollution records to make public disclosure about how they are attempting clean ups.

Location: 5th Floor Conference Room