As IISD writes on its website,

“This paper examines how the Chinese business community can best use international sustainability standards to enhance its competitiveness in global markets, in so doing more effectively placing themselves on a sustainable economic path. We highlight the opportunity for Chinese businesses, supported by enabling public policies, to become a force in shaping the next generation of sustainability standards in global markets as a competitive strategy consistent with China’s broader interests. Doing this requires Chinese actors to engage more deeply in existing standards initiatives and take a more explicit role among the communities that have developed and now govern these standards. Effective engagement in such standards is a means of offsetting competitive disadvantages or creating competitive advantages when businesses and nations choose a more sustainable development path. This paper sets out both strategic options for businesses and policy options for the Chinese government to realize sustainable development and competitiveness goals.” –IISD Publications Centre

This is the final version of a paper launched a year earlier by AccountAbility, which I posted about here.

Download the final paper here.

The ISEAL (International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labeling) Alliance is a membership organization for international voluntary standards systems (VSS). ISEAL sets standards for standards groups and has been working on impacts codes. ISEAL members include the Forest Stewardship Council, the Marine Stewardship Council, Fairtrade Labeling Organization, UTZ Certified, Rainforest Alliance/Sustainable Agriculture Network, and many other standards groups that have been at the forefront of what Michael Conroy calls the ‘certification revolution.”

International voluntary standards systems (and ISEAL Alliance members in particular) are reshaping international markets through numerous ways. They help companies “compete up” on social and environmental impacts by offering credible market signals for what economic theory used to call externalities. These standards help governments enforce environmental regulations like the Lacey Act that prohibits importation of unsustainable wood in the US. They can hep companies and governments procure goods and services sustainably.

The conference was very interesting in that for the first time in my experience, multiple stakeholders from business, government, and the standards community were in the same room. Wal-Mart’s representative in charge of sustainable procurement had only heard the week before that standards organizations have such an important role. Standards groups had presentations on life-cycle analysis from leading actors like Greg Norris.

My presentation in London focused on China and voluntary standards. I got into this area through research on a “Sustainable Trade Strategy” for China with AccountAbility, the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the Chinese State Council’s think tank the Development Research Center. That researched focused largely on the role of voluntary standards in shaping the future competitiveness of China’s transnational corporations. The paper touched only lightly on the role China would have on voluntary standards systems. (Read more about that here). My presentation in London filled some of the gaps.

Here’s a link to my powerpoint on “International Voluntary Standards in China: Present Conditions and Future Possibilities”.

Here’s a quick summary of my presentation:

(I apologize that I write bare-bones powerpoints and I don’t have a transcript of my presentation).

1) Context: International voluntary standards developed largely at the “end of history” under US-dominated international market conditions and now face BRIC challengers.

2) China is doing a lot to develop its own standards and has the power to influence markets to benefit Chinese corporations and Chinese standards bodies (indeed, any other strategy would be illogical)

3) Prospects for the uptake of standards in China, ie, what Chinese consumers want, and which standards have already been taken up, etc.

4) Thoughts on MNC success in China and similar industry development, ie, the history of business registration in China, development of international accounting standards in China, and the recent rapid development of China’s Corporate Social Responsibility policy environment and company actions.

5) A common strategy for international VSSs: local interface/global consistency,

6) Priorities on achieving a move toward converging local and international standards in China so as to avoid setting back the development of standards in China.

After my presentation, I had two major takeaways:

1) International standards bodies know that China is a game-changer and they take it as a given that they must adapt quickly and in a coordinated way.

2) International stakeholders recognize that China is one of the few developing countries that can actually achieve relatively high success in getting international organizations and corporations to respect local norms, customs, and business environment. Or, in one participant’s words, (I paraphrase), “lots of developing countries ask companies to respect local development priorities, but only China can actually make this happen.” We were discussing this in the context of Google’s recent actions in the China market.

There’s a lot more work to be done in this area and the landscape is shifting fast.

Fifth annual Golden Bee Conference: Regional Responsible Competitiveness Panel, image courtesy of WTO Tribune

Here is a summary of my remarks at the fifth annual Golden Bee conference in Beijing, speaking on a panel about how governments, companies, and civil society are working together to shift markets to reward responsible business action and make development more sustainable.

The session was chaired by the head of the Sino-German CSR Project, Rolf Dietmer, and had representatives from four provincial and district CSR initiatives, including Shandong, Shanghai Pudong, Jiangsu and Sichuan, plus a representative form China Unicom. My work with Chinese provincial economics planners has centered on the textiles and medicines sectors in Zhejiang through Responsible Competitiveness work with AccountAbility.

WTO Tribune wrote an article here (“Government duty-bound “responsibility”….in Chinese: ??“?”???) about the session here and captured some of my main points, but which I summarize here. (The entire transcript of my remarks in Chinese can be found here.

My main points:

1) Shifting markets to reward responsible business action requires a level playing field that no single sector (civil society, government, or business) can provide;

2) Chinese government officials at the provincial level are unsurpassed globally in their level of innovation and activity to promote new ways ;

3) Each provincial system is unique and there is need for coordination amongst local governments, the center and international stakeholders;

4) This unique approach to promoting sustainable development is both an asset and a liability, because if Chinese stakeholders do not coordinate properly, their market signals will be ignored by international buyers, ie, Chinese standards may not be recognized;

5) Chinese government officials, working with businesses, and using the power of the government bureaucracy, the media and civil society to promote  good company practices and punish the bad, have the chance to clarify the way voluntary sustainability standards (such as the SA8000, GRI, ISO, AA1000, CSC9000T, FSC, etc) mature at the national and international levels;

6) Rather than create additional hoops for companies to jump through, governments can achieve economic, social environmental objectives by leveraging existing market mechanisms such as voluntary sustainability standards.

I add a point 7) International voluntary sustainability standards systems should see the power of Chinese stakeholders to pick winning standards as a wake-up call to be more serious about engaging in China and as an opportunity to scale up the impacts of their standards, since China plays such an integral part in so many global supply chains.

On November 30, I joined colleagues at the EU China Business Summit in Nanjing, Jiangsu, which dovetailed with the EU-China political meeting.

That day in Nanjing, under support from the Sino-Swedish Corporate Social Responsibility cooperation, AccountAbility launched the report Responsible Competitiveness in China 2009: Seizing the low carbon opportunity for green development.

This from AccountAbility:

Businesses in China are increasingly working with government and civil society to shift markets to reward sustainable development. These responsible business practices are becoming more and more embedded in the country’s emerging green industrial policy and low carbon development pathways. In some areas, China is set to leapfrog into the elite group of global green innovators.

These are some of the highlights from the report ‘Responsible Competitiveness in China 2009: Seizing the low carbon opportunity for green development’, launched at the 5th annual EU-China Business Summit as part of the Swedish EU presidency on 30 November in Nanjing, China.

• Download English report
• Download the Chinese version

The analysis presented in this report shows that China is developing a distinctive low carbon, responsible pathway, namely that:

• Low carbon industrial policies offer Chinese businesses and consumers huge opportunities
• Responsible business ventures in China are now impacting global markets relaunching China’s brand
• Strong government leadership, incentives and supportive policies are playing key roles

The report was independently researched and written in a unique collaboration between AccountAbility and the China WTO Tribune, with support from the Sino-Swedish CSR Cooperation Project. Learn more about the report’s key findings.

The Joint Statement of the 12th EU-China Summit specifically “decided to strengthen high-level dialogue and exchanges between think-tanks from both sides, and to promote and support regular exchanges.” Read the Joint Statement in full. AccountAbility’s partnership with the China WTO Tribune is an example of this kind of knowledge and collaboration exchange.

Guardian: A green call to arms (Chinese)

ChinaDialogue: Obama’s China moment (Chinese)

AccountAbility’s Managing Partner, Simon Zadek, launched this report at the Boao Forum this year in Hainan and at the China Entrepreneur Club’s Daonong Green Companies Forum in Beijing. This paper is part of a two-year study with the State Council’s Development Research Center on “China’s sustainable trade strategy” working with several central-level Chinese research organizations and three international think tanks.

This paper examines how the Chinese business community can best use international sustainability standards to enhance their competitiveness in global markets and more effectively place themselves on a sustainable economic pathway.

It highlights the opportunity for Chinese businesses, supported by enabling public policies, to become a force in shaping the next generation of sustainability standards in global markets as a competitive strategy consistent with China’s broader interests. Doing so will require deeper engagement in existing standards initiatives, and a more explicit role amongst the communities that have developed and now govern them. Effective engagement in such standards is a means of off-setting competitive disadvantages, and creating competitive advantages when businesses and nations choose a more sustainable development path.

This paper sets out both strategic options for businesses and policy options for the Chinese government to realise sustainable development and competitiveness goals.

Download the full English version, full Chinese version, or the bilingual executive summary.

• Download the full English version.
• Download the full Mandarin version.
• Download the bi-lingual Executive Summary.

Read the press release.

Mentioned in the Harvard Business Review blog here.

Video interview with me on NetEase discussing link between sustainability and Chinese competitiveness (in Mandarin Chinese).

I didn’t expect to sit at the head table, but that’s what happens when you’re the first foreigner of non-Chinese descent to set foot in a Chinese village. My memories of this “Roots & Shoots wish School” groundbreaking would have been clearer had I not been asked to say a few unprepared words to the 200-plus students and their relatives as the “blond haired, blue eyed” American. I told the group that, as a volunteer with the Jane Goodall Institute, I was honored and excited to learn more about life in rural Anhui.

We were there as visitors, teachers, and—though none of us seemed aware of it at the time—part of the new grassroots of Chinese civil society. We were not there for our own re-education, but that’s what happened, at least to me.

Unlike much of the more developed world, most Chinese city dwellers consider a trip to the countryside less like a Sunday drive and more like an excursion to another country. There are wide divisions of knowledge, experience, and means between big city folks and villagers.

In some ways, Yangshan Village seemed like stepping back in time. There was almost no trash on the ground, almost all of our food was natural and huge forest insects tried to make friends with us. Roots & Shoots staff prepared well. We brought cooks, doctors, and a carefully recruited team of volunteer teachers. Our group of thirty camped in sleeping bags on the floor of one classroom. We made a showering room by taping together straw mats and refrigerator boxes.

One morning in pouring rain on muddy mountain trails, we trekked to a Ming Dynasty house with a family of four generations. Chairman Mao and the God of Wisdom shared wall space next to their harvest calendar. The farming peasant family had a booming coffin-making side business.

All six families we visited on our eight hours of hiking that day have electricity. Many have stereos and small appliances. No one goes hungry. Yet everyone seemed old or infirmed, even on a day when no one was working in the fields.

I got back to the school to find our volunteer doctors finishing up physical exams and eye checks. I stepped into one of the dirt floor classrooms to watch the last five minutes of a messy, hands-on art lesson. The other room was full of grins as children learned about dinosaurs.

No young people except us youth

We spent our evenings searching in vain for mobile phone signals, singing songs, showering, cooking, cleaning, or feeding the maggots in the outhouses.

There was a simple explanation for our lack of interaction with the locals. There are no young people in Yangshan Village; not one over 14. County leaders told us that over 60 percent of the overall population is laboring elsewhere. By the age of 20, most have already been mailing money back to the village for many years.

Then, even more astonishing to me was the realization that, in our group, at 26 years, I was one of the oldest.

There is a freedom gap between those who live in the city and those from the less developed areas. Chinese in cities are growing up empowered; more and more realize they have developed the resources to fulfill their dreams. Villagers, more than their city counterparts, are still playing catch-up.

Being rich is glorious; being fulfilled is harder

While the young people from China‘s countryside migrate from one dangerous, undesirable job to another, villagers in Yangshan watched TV in their dirt-floored huts receiving signal from homemade tin-can satellite dishes.

That glitzy fake life has appeal. No wonder the villagers complained to me about their simple lives and how lucky city people are. In some ways, they have reason to be jealous. Their children’s education is half as good as a city kid’s—if they’re lucky.

Villagers do not understand urban discontent. They were not privy to my conversations in that big classroom where we volunteers slept. They did not hear tear-filled confessions from Shanghainese volunteers in which they confided their darkest fears. Villagers did not hear recent college graduates tell me they don’t know who they. Villagers have never experienced the hollow feeling of materialistic consumption where enough stuff and enough success is never enough.

Meanwhile, villagers welcome rising incomes, but do little to offset the familiar effects of economic development. The increasing number of consumer goods—batteries, food wrappers, cleaning supplies—means trash and pollutants are slowly accumulating in the otherwise pristine river valley. Farmers are getting sick by misusing pesticides.

The glory of the country life

Try as I did, I could not convince many villagers of the uniqueness of their country lives, which I perceive very clearly, having grown up in the comfortable countryside of the United States. They did not believe me when I told them that if I hadn’t been visiting as a volunteer, I would have paid to stay in their homes, or that more than a few rich Chinese urbanites would pay for their children to have their own, shall we say, revolutionary experiences.

The family in the Qing Dynasty house is demolishing their ancestral home to build a modern box. Ice cream wrappers speckle the river valley. The county plans to pave the only road into the village next year. Development continues.

Soon these students will have a new school given to them by a benefactor who hopes to give them the educational resources they need to reach their full potential. They will be able to communicate more with the outside world with net connectivity and computers. They will be exposed to new ideas and new peoples.

But will these young people grow up valuing what they already have–or keep waiting for a better life? Only through understanding choices between pursuing created wants and being satisfied with what one needs will China build the harmonious, egalitarian society it aims to have by 2020.

The cities are aswarm with volunteers. There’s hope in the air. I just hope the teachers in China‘s new “to the hills” movement are able to learn from their students. The material life isn’t a destination, but a stone in the path to a harmonious society.

now in her seventies, renowned primatologist Jane Goodall is fighting harder than ever for a better future

British primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall first won fame in the 1960s with her pioneering studies of chimpanzees in Gombe National Park in Tanzania. Since then she’s worked tirelessly to promote rights for all animals, chimpanzees included. In 1991, while conferring with students in Tanzania about their hopes for extracurricular programs, she founded Roots & Shoots (R&S), a youth education group that provides students with the experience to tackle problems concerning the relationship between people, animals, and the environment. In the intervening 16 years, R&S has spread to over 90 countries. China has four branches, in Beijing, Chengdu, Nanchang, and Shanghai, and there are R&S clubs in hundreds of local schools. Greg MacIsaac founded the first Chinese branch in Beijing in 1993. In 2003, the Shanghai branch became the first foreign non-profit organization to be granted official status by the Chinese government [see Terms of Development, Sept 2006], followed by the branch in Nanchang this year. Goodall will be in Beijing and Shanghai this month.

that’s: You first visited China about 13 years ago. Since then, what changes have you observed?

JG: Well, I’ve definitely seen changes in children’s attitudes towards animals; for example, they have a better understanding of dogs, and are even more concerned about birds kept in little cages.

When I first came, China was much more closed than it is today. It was less Western. There weren’t any McDonald’s; there weren’t any Starbucks. It was a very different feeling; you really felt like you were going somewhere different. But, of course, it was already very polluted, even though there were probably a quarter the number of cars. There were lots of bicycles.

that’s: Are you optimistic that China’s environmental problems can be solved?

JG: I think the main hope lies with the people. First of all, I have met so many people who really care. I’ve met so many government officials who are desperately worried about the degradation of the environment. I think it’s just very difficult. There’s a tremendous conflict between the environment and economic development, and I think it’s spun way out of control. This happens in many countries as they develop, but unfortunately for China, it’s just so huge. The problem is huge.

that’s: Is the choice between economic development and sustainable development a false one?

JG: Yes, it should never be a choice. It’s not a case of either/or. It has to be hand-in-hand. If you have economic development outstripping the environment at the cost of the environment, then you’re destroying the future for everyone.

that’s: If you had had the chance to study wild animals in China instead of Africa, would you have taken it?

JG: Well, probably I would have been attracted, like so many people, to giant pandas. Or I might have gone and studied golden, or snub-nosed monkeys in the high mountain forests.

that’s: You received your doctorate without getting a Bachelors degree. Which is more important: hands-on studies or formal education?

JG: I did my whole one and a half year [of chimp] studies without a degree of any sort. I think hands-on education is really, really important, especially for children. At schools, if they learn by doing, it’s gonna stick. That’s why I think Roots & Shoots is so important. That’s why I’m so delighted at how fast [the organization] is growing.

that’s: Is the Chinese attitude toward hands-on education changing?

JG: I think there’s much more willingness to involve the children in this open way of learning. Many universities have set up Roots & Shoots programs; they’re doing a fabulous job, really making it work.

that’s: What do you say to a city dweller who thinks he can’t make a difference?

JG: There isn’t an overall statement that you can make because each person responds slightly differently. You really have to treat people as individuals. But basically it’s not too difficult for people to understand that individual action, when multiplied by several million people, can make a change.

that’s: I want to talk a little about Africa and how the locals in Gombe [National Park in Tanzania], and elsewhere, receive your work. Has it significantly changed their way of thinking?

JG: Tanzania is not a part of Africa where chimps have been hunted; they have been rather respected. I think the local people, the villagers, have always been fascinated by what I do, and they have learnt a great deal more [about how] chimpanzees attract people to Tanzania. They understand that it’s good for them, their local economy. So they are a little more sophisticated. They welcome us being there because, in addition to studying chimpanzees, we have a program which improves the lives of villagers around Gombe.

that’s: You were chosen by Kofi Annan to be the United Nations Messenger of Peace.

JG: It’s an interesting concept: that we’ll never have total peace on this planet unless we can learn to live in harmony with the natural world. We will never learn to have harmony in the natural world until we alleviate the crippling poverty that people live under, until we manage to stabilize population growth, and stop fighting. You don’t stop fighting until you alleviate poverty and have a more manageable number of our species on the planet. It all ties in together.

that’s: How do you feel about your image being used in pop culture, like being parodied on The Simpsons cartoon, or featured in a theme ride at Disney World?

JG: Anything that gets the message out [is fine with me], anything which will get the message to people who would never come and hear my lectures, who wouldn’t read my books. You can’t imagine the number of people who have talked to me about [my character on The Simpsons]. It’s a way of getting into sections of society that I would otherwise never reach, which I think is so important.

that’s: Your name in Chinese is translated as “Zhen Gu Dao Er” or ‘珍古道尔’. ‘Zhen’ means ‘treasure’, and ‘Gu dao’ means ‘ancient truth’ or ‘ancient principle’. Does that relate to what some spiritual leaders have told you, that you have an ‘old soul’?

JG: We don’t even know that we have a soul. You can’t prove it, but I believe there is a spark of the divine in every living thing, not just people. We, with our passions and meaning and labeling things, we have called that spark of spirit a ‘soul’. I think that when people say that you have an ‘old soul’, it means you sort of understand certain native truths about how we ought to live on the planet, about the relationship we should have with nature and with each other. I think it brings perhaps a certain peace. I think somehow, if you have that aura of truth, people listen. If I have an old soul, then it’s been very helpful to me in the mission that I’ve been entrusted with.

that’s: Recently, when I was talking to a guy in a train station about how we all have choices to make and we all can make an impact. He said, ‘Well, every time you fly, it has a big environmental impact … .’

JG: Well, that’s absolutely true. If I stopped flying … I don’t know, the demand for me to go to places like Peru and India and Australia and New Zealand is so great. The impact of those visits is huge. [Those visits] have results in a big leap forward for R&S and lots of young people developing environmental responsibility. So I have to believe that the environmental impact of my visits is more than balanced [by the damage done by flying]. Roots & Shoots groups have planted millions of trees.

that’s: How many R&S groups are there world-wide?

JG: Around 8,500.

that’s: And how many volunteers?

JG: We have a brand new website that is going to make it possible to track [the numbers] and get a better idea [of the numbers]. At our schools the numbers range anywhere from two students to the entire [student body]. We reckon that on average, each group has 30 or 40 volunteers.

that’s: How do you stay grounded when you travel so much?

JG: I don’t know. I suppose it has something to do with that ‘old soul’. [I have a sense] of peace, and that’s the peace of the forest that I can carry within; it’s there inside me. I think I’m using my time in a productive way – a mixture of writing, of talking to children, and talking to policy makers, corporations and so forth. Because bodies age, there will come a time when I can’t rush around like this, 320 some days of the year. Or we won’t be flying because of terrorism. As it is, I shall carry on doing this kind of thing for as long as I can, or feel it sensible.