when thinking about the process by which solutions are developed, it is important to understand the role of personal conditions, the desire to change one’s conditions, and how that will motivate a persons creativity.

A the recent China Daily story Environment-friendly old man greens the mountain, while short, is a simple example  of how one person can be motivated to change their surroundings.

I think it is important to remember that it is little anecdotes like this that will motivate others as well.

Liu Shuiyan, 77, a farmer in Xishan village, Pucheng, Shaanxi province, has spent the past 19 years greening the mountain next to his village.

His efforts to plant trees, thereby controlling soil erosion, and green the barren mountain were prompted by a mudslide in the summer of 1989 that damaged his farmland and destroyed the wheat harvest.

Liu has since sunk 10 wells, built more than 2,000 m of road and dug five irrigation channels for the 10,000 trees he has planted, which cover a 33-hectare area of the mountain.

Now imagine if his neighbors took it upon themselves to do the same.

After 2 weeks of walking past and admiring a new WWF campaign, I finally remembered to bring my camera.

What I like about it is that it takes three of the biggest energy wasting habits and has developed a simple campaign around this issues (air conditioning, lighting, and water).

Charlie McElwee, of the famed China Environmental LAw blog, is a lawyer with Squire, Sanders, and Dempsy and a professor at Shanghai’s Jiaotong University.

Last week he sat down with me to discuss the condition of China’s environmental law and policy, and it did not take us long to expand that to include a number of other issues. With so much happening so fast, what I enjoyed through this conversation was that Charlie was able to tie together his 20+ experience of experience in the US as an environmental lawyer to his 3 years in China.

It was an entertaining and educational half hour, and I hope you will enjoy the clips.

Part 1: Policy, the rule of law, and enforcement

Part 2: The role of China’s new ministry, NGOs, and education

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a review of the Dell CSR report, and the subsequent announcement of its “carbon neutrality”, that resulted in a few emails/ comments expressing I had set a bar too high.

Well, fortunately for my defense HP has recently released a new Eco Solutions program that exceeds a number of the things I was hoping to see from Dell through their sustainability programs.  to be fair, the products do not match apple against apples, however I think that through HP’s programs there are lessons for others that should be followed:

the core pf the program consists of 4 points, as per the announcement:

• an enterprise printing assessment service and a carbon calculator that together comprehensively address energy and paper use, related carbon emissions and projected cost savings for optimized printing environments;
• a global paper policy governing the sustainable manufacture and use of paper HP sells to customers and uses for packaging, collateral and its own office printing;
• a new HP inkjet printer made almost entirely from recycled materials; and,
• an HP Eco Highlights label that will help customers identify environmental attributes of a given HP product or service.

For me, #3 is something that I was hoping of Dell. Particularly in its towers and laptop casings.  Both firms highlight their strong recycling programs, but where HP goes one step further is that they point out the following about their new product:

Finding new uses for recycled materials, HP introduced the HP Deskjet D2545 Printer, the company’s first printer made almost entirely from recycled plastic material. Eighty-three percent of the printer’s total plastic weight is made from recycled plastics and it uses HP 60 ink cartridges, which are molded from recycled plastic resins. Additionally, the overall packaging for this printer is 100 percent recyclable.

One of a few new products, my hope is that this becomes a standard for HP, Dell, and others.  that when designing the products for next year, they are not just looking at how to use recycled parts from previous models.. but that they are developing designs that can be leveraged in futher generations as well.

It is a system that is win - win - win for the company as it reduces waste, it reduces materials spend, and it reduces energy consumption

Just after the Opening Ceremony, the UNEP announced that China’s Yao Ming will be its first Environmental Champion.

In the press conference, Yao had this to say about his new role:

“As a sportsman, I believe sport has a major role to play in promoting environmental issues,” Yao said in a statement. “I will work with young people across the world and try to inspire them to plant trees, use energy-efficient light bulbs, harvest rain water and become environmental champions in their own communities.

With previous campaigns against shark fin soup and the protection of exotic speacies, it is clear that Yao ming looks to stick with the environment as his issue, and personally I think that will only add further to his cause to protect the environment.

We will have to hope that Beijing will look at the results of the car controls during the Games and come up with some ideas for how to further reduce the pollution from transportation. Unfortunately much of the focus in the news has been that Beijing does not want there to be a decline in automobile sales. I am not sure exactly why this is the case: is it because China needs more and more consumption to drive its economy and create jobs, or is it just due to pressure from oil and automobile companies?

I see nothing wrong with trying to reduce sales of cars in China. Just because USA has so many per person, does China need to ‘beat’ the USA at number of cars and size of automobile market (only #2 at the moment, globally). This is the kind of attitudes that need to change; and these assumptions (we need consumption, for example) also need to change, as they are just not sustainable.

Over the last few months, Greenpeace has grown not only in size.. but in confidence.

They have set up some public campaigns surrounding chopstick usage, water contamination, energy usage, and during the last few weeks of reporting on the air quality of the games it was Greenpeace who were giving daily briefings.

However, in a sign of their growing strength and another sign that they are building credibility, they have just published a report that lays out the case that the firm Golden East Paper company should not be allowed to IPO

According to the coverage at China.org:

Greenpeace China yesterday called on the Chinese government to reject paper manufacturer Gold East Paper’s application for a domestic stock market listing because of what the environmental lobby group calls the firm’s “shocking” environmental record.

Greenpeace China alleges that Gold East Paper and its subsidiaries have committed eight serious environmental offenses since 2005; in the past two months, according to the lobby group, Gold East subsidiaries discharged illegal black effluent in Hainan, and exceeded legal pollution limits in Suzhou.

Why this is an important step, and a sign of progress, is that while it was reported that 100 firms earlier this year had their IPOs shelved from pollution, this is the first time an NGO has initiated a public campaign

To read the full report in Chinese, you can download it here.

Chen Zhili, head of the Beijing Olympic Village, received a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold award on Wednesday presented by the US Green Building Council.

more here. Gold is not bad, though there is 1 level higher -Platinum.

Interestingly, the LEED system which originates in the USA, has been taking off much faster than the BEAM system, which originates in Hong Kong. Either way, both are making headway (more here on BEAM’s progress).

LEED, though, seems to be much more popular than BEAM with various important US organisations and individuals championing it. Further many Multinationals who have received LEED certification elswhere are persuing it aggressively for their new office space in China. In fact, for some, it is an explicit target as part of their Sustainable Development goals.

Always On will be hosting the Going Green conference San Fransisco from September 15 -17, and you will find Crossroads there.

Perhaps the best lineup of speakers we have seen of any “green” conference, this conference is a sure success for those looking to meet the leaders in cleantech and learn about technologies and applications.

Trends and Topics
The Green Energy of Tomorrow Batteries Water Supply, Storage & Treatment Photovoltaics The Green City Growing Biofuel Alternative Fuels - Landfill Waste, Animal Fat, Plant Fiber Organic & Biofuel Impacts on Global Agriculture Global Warming Challenges Water Entrepreneurs Wastewater Treatment Opportunities Distributed Energy Infrastructure The Virtual Utility Wind Power Fuel Cells vs. Batteries	Green Consumer Products The Next Generation Automobile Biofuel Refining The Green Home Waste and Pollution Treatment The 500,000 Year Timeline Green Energy Companies Mega-Projects - Watering & Cooling the World Big vs. Small - Synergies for Green Civilization Fuel Cells Public & Private, Who is Greenest? What are the Most Lucrative, Transformative Green Technologies?

For my part, this is the only conference I have seen to date that has packed in so much, and I will be spending a lot of time learning about how the ideas and technologies presented in the conference can translate into China initiatives.  There is a lot of talk, and it is thorugh events like these that I see tangible probabiliteis for there to be action.

If you are interested in learning more, you can go to the Going Green website here to see the full lineup of speakers and topics.  Then, when you are ready to reserve your seat, come back to Crossroads and click on the icon in the right sidebar to save 50% off the ticket.  Organizers are planning for a maximum of 500, and with speakers like Vinod Khosla and partners like Scientific American and Morgan Stanley, tickets are going fast.

Hope to see you in SF, and if you are going please let us know.  I hope to put together a China table at the conference to ambush and interest people… and I need some support!

Last year, UNEP released a report of Beijing’s progress towards a Green Olympics. The report is comprehensive, though the press release is a more manageable (and still relatively detailed) read. Overall it seems Beijing has done an excellent job, though the focus has been, typically, more on a) tangible and physical improvements (i.e. less on the awareness raising) and b) dealing with problems, rather than preventing them (i.e. treating waste, rather than really trying to reduce waste). The press release (which I recommend reading) summarises:

Remaining Concerns include Air Pollution; Offsetting of Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Public Awareness and Need to Boost Public Transport Use

Significant strides are being made to ‘green’ the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, a report issued today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says.

The hosting of the Games is also proving to be a catalyst for accelerating environmental improvements across the city as Beijing strives to balance rapid, often double-digit economic growth with health and environmental protection.

“The more than $12 billion spent by the Municipal Government and Government of China, appears to have been well spent-and will be even more well spent if the lessons learnt and measures adopted are picked up by municipalities across the country so as to leave a real and lasting nationwide legacy,” he added.

Indeed, if many of the innovative practices can be scaled up, the effect could be tremendous. One will have to see if, post-Olympics, the Olympic brand can still be used to help!