Making the Case for Energy Efficiency in South China
We’re fond of saying that advocacy is an everyday practice — it’s about being being able to persuade others that one course of action is superior to another. This can include everything from where to go for dinner to how best to address global warming.
In Guandong Province, China, it often means the difference between clean or dirty industrial production. Guangdong, an area about the size of Texas, is home to 100 million people — and more manufacturing jobs than the entire United States. Often called the “Factory to the World,” this province has maintained double digit economic growth for more than a decade. As the Government of China now recognizes, however, this growth has engendered a host of new challenges: skyrocketing energy needs, inefficient production processes, and staggering amounts of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. As a consequence, China has proactively set some of the most ambitious energy efficiency and GHG reduction targets of any country in the world.
At a conference ISC organized in South China in 2007, representatives from Chinese and multinational companies concluded that the problem is not weak Chinese policies, or a lack of auditing and monitoring — both are in fact reasonably good by international standards — but rather, an “implementation gap.” Factory managers responsible for environment, health, and safety (EHS) issues lack either the technical skills or the management skills to effect positive change in their facilities. The single greatest determinant of whether an EHS audit will result in concrete improvements is the presence of a strong, skilled EHS manager. While these managers need technical skills, they also need to be accomplished internal advocates for improved EHS performance.
ISC is working with the Guangdong Economic and Trade Commission, the Guangdong Bureau of Work Safety, the Lingnan Business School at Sun Yat-sen University, and a host of other Chinese and international partners to establish the first-ever Chinese-operated and Chinese-staffed EHS Academy. This independent Academy will offer high-quality, affordable training to factory managers in Guangdong in environmental management, work safety, energy efficiency, and pollution reduction.
Most importantly, the Academy will focus on management systems — on how EHS managers can become effective agents of change in their companies by demonstrating the importance and bottom-line cost effectiveness of improving EHS performance. By advocating more effectively for better EHS practices internally, these managers will make their companies more competitive externally, even as they cut energy costs and reduce harmful pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
Tags: China, Energy Efficiency, Global Warming