If necessity is the mother invention under normal circumstances, then transparency is the mother of all necessity in China. It is something that we have seen over the years as crisis's propel the media further,something that the recent Yale 360 article As China’s Pollution Toll Grows,Protesters and Media Push Back eludes to: In recent months, protests over the severe illnesses caused by China'…
Late last week, when the State Administration of Foreign Exchange released new regulations (right click to download here) governing how China based NGOs register their inbound donations, several media outlets (AP, SF Examiner, and SCMP) put out coverage that would leave many to believe that this new regulation was going to have an immediate and negative impact on NGOs operating here: "China has s…
Over the holiday, I was catching up on some Big Think clips, and I came across the ... interesting... clip from the Economist's New Your Bureau chief Matthew Bishop where he discusses philanthropy in China. What I found ... interesting.. about the clip was that he seems to paint the picture that China, and its philanthropists, are having to become givers as part of an exercise whereby they…
This weekend, while attending the Three on The Bund Sustainable Business and Society Event, I knew that it would be one that I would be interested in, as at the top of the ticket you had thee leaders of business management schools talking about sustainability. Moderated by PhD Lu Xiongwen ,Dean of Fudan University's Business School, the main event was really when Prof. Richard Locke got up to s…
The recent study The Greenness of China: Household Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Urban Development, a collaboration from researcher from UCLA, HArvard, and Tsinghua PhD candidates, takes a look at urban emission growth.. .using largely economic data.. and it is quite an interesting study. Download PDF here China urbanization is associated with both increases in per-capita income and greenhouse g…
In the lead up to, and in the middle of, the recent Copenhagen discussions the role of China as either the biggest polluter or as the biggest Cleantech investor has been the focal point for many. It is a bipolar focus that has defined many of the discussions on China in the past, and as the recently reviewed debate on whether China is a developed or developing country highlights, it is a condition…
Fresh off several conferences and meetings where discussions centered around smart grid, wind power, and other renewable energies, yesterday's tour of the Shanghai Municipal Waste Facility proved to be a very interesting site visit. Operational for three years now, this facility (one of two facilities in Shanghai) incinerates about 1,500 tons of trash a day from five districts of Shanghai (Shangha…
Regardless of whether you believe COP15 still has hope, or is a predetermined failure, the fact is that in about 3 weeks a large number of scientists, environmentalists, policy makers, and cleantech funds are going to be in Copenhagen... and the world will be watching. Even prior to the recent announcements from Singapore though, many had already begun gaming the outcomes, and hyping the need f…
If there is one thing that I run into, and get frustrated by, it is the fact that many of the "solutions" to issues we face are always too big for the average person. That, while we can all certainly recycle and buy organic clothing, the rest of it should be left to new technologies. Technologies who will be subsidized by large organizations, developed by people smarter than I, and whose impact…
This weekend, I gave my first keynote speech entitled What Sustainability Means to Me at the ecodesign fair. It was a speech that required a lot out of me, more than most, because I had to not only boil down several years of ranting into 30 minutes. I had to do it in front of people who were in the know. People who are respected members of the community. People would call me out. ... an…
Last year, I watched Chris Buckley from Torana speak about the process of moving his production of rugs from chemical based dyes to natural dyes (see interview here). Chris Buckley is an Oxford science graduate and PhD, who has lived and worked in Asia since 1994. He worked as a product development specialist for a multinational company before leaving to pursue a new career in handmade textiles…
With nearly every analyst report, news column, blogpost, or conference, I usually find myself wondering how that particular voice or medium would achieve the goals of sustainability, and more widely, the more I read... the more I realize we (as a people) need to sit down and work out just what exactly the goal of sustainability is. Is sustainability about green jobs for a district, or about cle…
With 193 MBA students, 7 topics, 50+ subtopics, and 20 potential corporate, non-profit, and social enterprises partners in place, I am ready to kick off the first Sustainability and Responsible Leadership Course at CEIBS next week. Already, I am happy to say, I have been speaking with students who have "heard" about the class and are excited to get moving (2 group are already working on small 2 w…
What would a summer in China be without an algae outbreak on a major body of freshwater? Would it be like a day without industrial contamination? Recent cases have only served to highlight the fact that there is a dearth of systems in place. That, contrary to the announcements of 24/ 7 monitoring of bodies of water, a system has yet to be put into place to take the measurements and do anythin…
Well, for anyone hoping for a quick turnaround, think again. A few reports out today that covered the release of the 2050 China Energy and CO2 Emissions Report are putting the peak of emissions in the 2030.. 2050 timeframe, The Reuters Coverage of the release also included a bit on where the government will look to study and address the "imminent threats" that pretty much everyone are in agreem…
