Our friends at WethicA have released their recent newsletter What Constituents a “Responsible Purchase”?.

It is an important topic for many in China, and it is a topic that has evolved from making sure no children are in the labor pool, to ensuring your painted items are not lead paint based, to develop sustainable practices when designing, manufacturing, and selling products.

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Most of our customers are western buying companies wanting to improve labor conditions in their supply chain worldwide. Most purchase from other countries besides China extending our work with our clients to countries of some of the following: India, Bangladesh, Mexico, Turkey, Morocco, Romania, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia. Different country conditions often prompts the question “is it a responsible purchase”. Another way to ask the same question is if we should stop working with this country because of its general lack of social awareness.

I have mulled over this question even before becoming formally involved with social accountability and corporate social responsibility. The first time I asked myself this was in Morocco ten years ago. Every week, the prevalent garment industry there dispatched thousands of trucks crossing the Straits of Gibraltar with finished goods to more affluent Europe. It was common to witness Moroccan children climb onto the back of the trucks or trapped themselves amongst the goods to enter Europe despite the fatal risks of lack of water and food during the journey, dangers associated with jumping on moving trucks, and getting caught by law enforcement officers. At this time I felt the responsible approach was to buy things in countries like Morocco where in spite of conditions, it brought jobs to people that needed it. Jobs, however low-end, meant opportunities and could reduce the desperation of these youths risking their lives on those trucks. In the years since, my outlook has shifted dramatically after being exposed to absolutely horrendous working conditions that can not be considered as any type of opportunity except only for owners to exploit their laborforce.I have seen how such harsh and dangerous working conditions have slowly and surely destroyed the physical and mental state of employees leaving a demoralized and hopeless workforce. I am confronted again with the same question if it responsible to work with such factories.

Sure, I can argue the creation of jobs.

But at what cost?

Our experience in many developing countries gives WethicA the tools to analyze this issue extensively. Naturally, some countries have better general working conditions than others. But this by no means automatically assures every factory in “good working conditions” countries are up to those standards or even close, and vice versa with “bad working conditions” countries. More importantly, crucial differences in living costs, government policies and social organization prevents the application of any feasible global benchmark of absolute best or worst. Very often, a good situation in one country is considered a poor one in another. Taking in the overall situation of a country on to its own scale is key to identifying the good factories to use as the benchmark. Returning to the original question: should companies stop buying goods from one country because the general working conditions are worst than other countries? If that is the case, this will halt the potential of any progress, in particular with the good factories, throwing out all hope in achieving real improvement in that country. This can not be a responsible solution either.

Once again, we need to select the best factories with real potential for sustainable improvement based on the individual country’s benchmark, not a global standard. This I feel is the only responsible solution.

On Saturday October 25, Crossroads attended the Fall Eco Design Fair, which brought together over 25 businesses and groups committed to well-designed and environmentally aware products. Walking through the narrow strip of tents, I was warmly greeted and handed information ranging from bamboo clothes and items, FSC-certified paper products (http://www.alocalprinter.com/uk/fsc-certified-paper/), environmentally-friendly diapers, an organic produce section and more. While taking a stroll around the area, I did a couple of quick interviews. Below I asked a designer, a worker from Greendesign, a university student and a worker from Studio Maki what sustainability and CSR meant to them.

The Devil finds work for idle hands is a quote that I (and others) talk about when discussing China’s labor market.  It is not so much a matter of if there will be problems from large scale layoffs, just a matter of how big the problems would be.

So, when reading the recent AFP article Laid-off workers in China say prospects grim I took interest in the paragraph:

Laid-off migrant workers said job prospects elsewhere in southern China looked grim as soaring prices for raw materials and shrinking demand from the crisis-hit US and European economies squeeze manufacturers in the region.

“We thought about going to Shenzhen or even Shanghai. But then factories are also closing down in those places,” Song Xiaoguan, 25

Surely an issue the central party is going to be keenly aware of, for many in China who have left their families to work in the city, a lot is at stake.

China Crossroads was formally invited to attend the fourth China forum on environment and development over this past weekend in Beijing. The forum was sponsored by SUEZ Environment; organized by the All China Environment Federation (ACEF) and the Center for Studies on China’s Circular Economy and Environmental Assessment and Forecasting; and hosted by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.  Many experts from all over the world came to present their findings to further support a future low carbon cleaner, greener China.

Walking into the conference room area presented me with a contradiction that stayed with me the entire weekend. I don’t mean to be overly-critical, but the first thing I saw was nicely laid out plates and perfectly placed tongs to be used for individually packaged buns, cakes and biscuits?? This promptly got me to thinking about the environmental contradictions we all have in our lives; especially for we wanna-be environmentalists who often fall far short of the mark of being environmentally friendly.

We travel around attending conferences about CO2 reduction yet probably contribute more CO2 to the atmosphere from our travelling than the average person who doesn’t even think about environmental protection.  On another note, below is a summary of some of the interesting presentations.

• The U.N. is going to launch Carbon labeling and Eco-labeling soon in China.

• SUEZ Environnement (not misspelled!) has a project in Saudi Arabia that de-salinizes water and turns it into electricity.  In Mexico, SUEZ has a variety of projects that turns wastewater into fertilizer into energy. In Shanghai, they have the SCIP project that turns toxic waste into energy in the form of steam. In Hong Kong they have a project that treats landfill gas and turns it into energy. All of these projects can be seen at    http://www.suez-environnement.com/.

• The Forum really stressed the concept of “common but differentiated responsibility.” A speaker commented that at the Bonn Summit, developed countries made a lot of promises but never carried them out and that technology transfer hasn’t been enough in China.  At this point, I desperately wanted a speaker to get up at some point in the conference and look at China’s environmental challenge as a tremendous opportunity for China to rise and lead as an example. Instead, I heard more complaints and comparisons that made the West look bad (which are justifiable). Such statistical comparisons aimed at pointing the finger, however, do not move us forward.

• Watson Gin, California Department of Toxic Substances Control Chief Engineer, talked about “green chemistry” and how California was going about committing to the concept of a cradle to cradle production mode. First was the passage of the SB 509 (Senate Bill 509) and the AB 1879. Following this, he said that it is essential to disseminate information on toxic chemicals, account for chemical toxicity, train new generation of science and engineers and include green chemistry into the Environmental Education Initiative. The above steps will eventually lead to the ban of certain consumer products, which I find fascinating.

• Peak Oil Production: This is a huge topic that is dominating a lot of sustainability discussions.  According to Graeme Lang, Professor from the Department of Asian International Studies at City University Hong Kong, we already hit our peak discoveries in the 1960s and most oil experts do not expect any more major discoveries to occur. Production has been peaking the last decade and the last peak will consist of multiple mini-peaks and then sharp decline. The speaker gave numerous examples of urban re-localization that will help cities wean themselves off oil.  Check out www.peakoil.net.

• An idea that dominated the conference dealt with the reduction of urban sprawl in order to reduce energy use via less transportation, localized resources, etc. In accordance with this idea, vertical cities are better than suburban sprawl even though a Hong Kong architect presenter expressed dissatisfaction with Hong Kong’s vertical veneer.

• For me, the most interesting talk was by Yao Xin on Digital Environmental Protection and the way China is going about reducing Total Pollution Load (www.dept.ac.cn). He talked about a system that can sense and then send out warnings to factories in other provinces that are close to going over their pollution limit and an online supervision data and environment information data including pollution forecasts.

• Yu Xiaoxuan, Vice Director of Construction & Environment and on the Olympic Organizing Committee, cited Greenpeace’s China Olympics rating of 5 as evidence of China’s Green achievement (versus Athens score of 1 given by Greenpeace). I took this as a positive sign that a government official (or a person with high status) looked to an NGO’s work for legitimizing the Committee’s work. Hopefully this will become more of a trend.

Last Thursday October 16, GIGA continued its lecture series with a talk by EDAW, a leading landscaping firm that has carried out many projects throughout China. Arne McRadu, Senior Landscape Designer and Jason Jones, Senior Environmental Planner, discussed EDAW’s sustainable master planning process and gave numerous case studies that highlighted some of the firm’s innovations and challenges in China. Below is a quick summary of each 10-minute clip:

Part I: Mr. McRadu discusses how EDAW has incorporated sustainability into its practice since 1939. In order to better achieve sustainability, EDAW has a developed a DEEP practice: Design, Economics, Environment and Planning. They aim to “produce places, products and services in a way that reduces the use of nonrenewable resources, minimizes environmental impact and puts people in the natural environment.”  In terms of landscaping within China, wetlands have been disappearing at an alarming rate. Many people cite climate change as the culprit when, in fact, it is poor local management issues. As a result, many of EDAW’s projects have involved wetland restoration. Mr. McRadu then begins to go through the principles of EDAW’s master planning.

Part II:  Mr. McRadu finishes up with the 10 principles of EDAW’s master plan (resilience, economics, responsiveness to location, place making, movement, energy, water, material waste, hinterland and sense of belonging) and jumps into the Chongqing National Forest case study. In the villages near the earthquake area, tourism began attracting a lot of business through forested areas that eventual lead to overdevelopment and the government’s demolishment of the local tourism businesses. EDAW was contracted to go into the area and re-habilitate the area. Mr. Jones talks us through the project and gives a more concrete idea of how a place can become “overdeveloped.”

Part III: Mr. Jones goes into more detail about Chongqing’s water treatment strategy and EDAW’s lessons from case studies in Denmark and Poland. He then gives an overview of the Kunming Dianchi Lake wetland and water system case study. EDAW is contracted to develop resort facilities next to one of China’s most polluted lakes.  This challenge brings up discussions related to wetland management issues. This clip ends with a list of the different types of wetlands planned for the area such as a wetland ecological park, wetland botanical garden, wetland maze and an artificial beach wetland.

Part IV:  Mr. Jones go through a couple more case studies. He starts with the Mangrove Park and then works his way through the Shenzhou resort and Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park. All of these projects have great descriptions and the Shenzhou resort section discusses the relationship between social impact assessments and development projects. In addition, the Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park (largest in China)  section leads to a discussion on the role EDAW plays when working with factories.

Part V: In this last section, Mr. Jones gives a great introduction to a pilot urban storm water runoff management system in Beijing. This was quite an amazing project that consists of an automated system of culverts that are triggered by meteorological reports of rainstorms. It really makes you wonder the limits of human innovation when resources, such as water, are scarce. The clip ends with a discussion about golf courses and their ecological impact. My question: is constructing golf courses a sustainable landscaping practice?

Learning about the many projects EDAW is doing in China was interesting and really inspiring in terms of what can be accomplished when experts coordinate their work for the sake of making a landscape functional and healthy. I do wonder, however, what would happen if there would be firms out there doing pure re-habilitation landscaping (instead of building resorts etc.). Anyone know of any? I also wonder where you draw the line in terms of what is deemed as “sustainable landscaping” when you know some client demands are ecologically detrimental. I think EDAW takes a good approach of trying to persuade and do the best to make the project as ecological as possible; but when should a firm say no?

For those of you who are in need of a marathon of science, social awareness, and just generally smart people, I highly suggest you go to PopTech Live now.

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Citizen reporting
http://www.moobol.com/ms/2193/live219320.shtml#pC 拍摄地点： [湖北•武汉] 2008-10-09 20:19:19

There is a blog called 王浩峰聚焦战报 （Wang Jiefeng Jujiao Zhanbao) that covers a lot of controversial topics that you wouldn’t expect to get through the “Great Firewall” of China. Most recently there was an investigative report on sweatshop labor in Wuhan which can be found at this link: http://www.moobol.com/ms/2193/live219320.shtml#pC 拍摄地点： [湖北•武汉] 2008-10-09 20:19:19. The article goes through a couple of interview with the child laborers and the surrounding residents. For a rough translation (really rough), read below.

The relationship between the media and the government has always fascinated and perplexed me in China. Official media outlets have exposed corruption and environmental problems that have brought about better accountability and justice. However, the media act with the permission of the government at all times and, therefore, what the Chinese media can and cannot cover varies widely from local government to local government. When it comes to citizen investigative reporting I am even more concerned. How does an individual take that daring step? How do they know that they won’t get in trouble? In particular, after looking at this blog, I wonder what kind of relationship the author(s) have with the Wuhan government and if it will turn sour like it did for the investigative environmental reporter Wu Lihong (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/world/asia/14china.html). Nevertheless, seeing this blog up and unrestricted gives more hope for more future investigative journalism in China, which will give more of a participatory voice to China’s civil society sector.

Title: 探访偷拍，揭发武汉令人震惊的童工暗流 Under-cover videotaping exposes a shocking child labor underground.

在武汉，一些黑心老板以儿童作为榨取暴利的劳动工具；一些孩子没日没夜地替他们卖命，流下了一行行辛酸血泪。In Wuhan, a black-hearted boss squeezes profit out of children making them laboring tools. Some children don’t have day or night and no one replaces them while they work themselves to death. Children just shed blood and tears.

接市民反映，《王浩峰聚焦》在9月底10月初，对武汉城乡结合部部分地段进行了探访，目击多少一脸稚气的工人在工厂加班加点顽命干活（他们分布在服装厂/ 印花厂/线厂/拉链厂等厂子劳作）。为了赶活，黑心老板把他们当“机器人”使用，让他们一天只休息6个小时，有的凌晨4时才下班；由于严重的睡眠不足，有的在生产中手指被机器“咬”伤；有的在生产中出了故障，得遭受老板恶语相加责骂；凌晨2时，见身心疲惫的他们在马路边小摊上，卖烧饼宵夜。
After public feedback, “Wen Haofeng Focus” gathered video clips in late September early October from Wuhan’s urban and rural areas. The clips give witness to many childlike faces working overtime. The kids are distributed throughout the workplace in areas such as the garment factory/printing plant/factory lines/zipper factory and other factory work areas. In order to make a living, the boss makes them act like robots causing them to work all day and rest only 6 hours while some work until 4 a.m. As a result of these horrible conditions, many children do not get enough sleep; some have had their fingers caught in the machines (knows as a “bite” injury) and those that make an error are cursed at by their boss. At 2 a.m. you can see their mental and physical exhaustion while they walk on the side of the street to buy sesame cake.

在一服装厂里劳碌的孩童，说他自己是95年3月出生。工头则说他刚15岁。 Talking with some of the children in the factory, one said that he was born in March of 1995. The foreman said he just turned 15.
问孩子每月能拿千把块钱吧。工头回答：“没有这多，有一点”。When the children were asked if they made 1,000 yuan a month, the foreman responded that they didn’t have that much money; only a little.

在一做拖把的工厂，一孩子在不断往拖把棍上套胶套，他说自己被雇佣已有1年时间了，来自湖北浠水，今年刚15岁；每天要套千多根拖棍。一年的工资是5千元。At a mop factory, a child doesn’t stop putting the rubber wrap around the mop’s stick. He says that he has been hired at the factory for a year and that he came from Hubei province’s Xishui. This year he just turned 15 and assembles more than 1,000 mobs a day. He makes 5,000 yuan a year.

周边的居民动情地说，这简直是害性命哪！他们中还有十二三岁的，又有谁能拯救他们呢？每次上面有检查，有人通知工厂做好。风声一过，问题立即还原。The surrounding residents emotionally say that this is a harmful way of life. They still have 12-13 year olds and who can save them? Every time the factory has an inspection they say that the factory is doing a good job. As soon as this type of empty talk goes away, problems go back to their original state.

众所周知，国家是严厉打击雇佣使用童工的非法行为的。只短短几天，《王浩峰聚焦》就从表面上见到这多干活的“娃娃脸”。在武汉城乡结合部到底有多少童工，这还是个未知数。希望相关部门以高度对党/对人民/对祖国的未来负责的态度，予以彻底查清解救，还孩子们金色的童年。还社会的公平正义。As we all know, the government has cracked down on child labor making it illegal. Only in a atter of days the “The Focus of Wang Haofeng” has shown us this many working “baby faces.” How many child laborers does Wuhan’s rural and urban areas contain? This is something we still need to calculate. I hope that relevant departments in the Party/the people/ and the country’s organizations can take a responsible attitude and thoroughly investigate and save these children so they can still have a golden childhood and bring about social justice.

Over the last 5 years, the term CSR has grown from a term that evoked a feeling of philanthropy to become a very large umbrella that encompasses a lot of issues related to how a company works to develop a more socially minded side to its business.  It is a term that many working within the “CSR” arena have begun saying is too big, that like Global Warming, that we are now in a position that we must find means to separate ourselves from “CSR” to more issue based terms like philanthropy, labor, environmental, etc.

Adding confusion to this has been the rise of sustainability.  A topic that is very important, a topic that has traditionally been considered a issue under the CSR umbrella, however many are beginning to wonder if it is time to further develop the definitions of CSR and sustainability as separate issues

In the words of James Leape, Director General of WWF International in a recent conference:

“Sustainability must be a good business proposition, but this is no longer just about corporate social responsibility. We are talking about a new bottom line.”:

Starting this process to redefine these terms (both are actually to large), it is important to understand at a fundamental level where these terms (and their issues) differ.

CSR as defined by the American Chamber of Commerce is:

Can be broadly defined as the concept that corporations should voluntarily commit to ethical, responsible business practices, reflecting the interests of all stakeholders in the company’s policies and actions. Key areas of concern include but are not limited to employee relations, environmental stewardship, community outreach, and corporate governance.

To look at this definition, it is clear that there is a lot packed into “CSR”, however where they all share a common thread is that these are all essentially issues that are (or can be) directly managed by corporate management.  They are everyday issues that should be address in the board room, on the shop floor, and in the surrounding communities.  Corporate governance ties management, legal, and accounting together,  employee relations ties in HR practices, management, and employees, and community outreach mixes the corporate philanthropy and volunteering practices together

Environmental stewardship, for the purposes of this post, is the area that “sustainability” has entered the picture, and it is where further definition needs to occur.

Companies strong in “CSR” do not simply develop and implement a strategy to address these issues, they internalize them as part of their core, a process that can be completed over time as all these issues are actually business issues.

CSR Asia highlighted the a post on the Tianya BBS that presents a pictorial of the conditions found in China’s rural schools.. and at the bottom you will see someone has added some pictures of new government facilities to juxtapose

For those that have not traveled to these places, it will be an eye opener, and it is important to keep in mind that in these areas villages will often only have a single school.  That to complete their education, children sill often need to board in other villages as they move up in schools.

We invest, like you; but, maybe our returns are even greater than yours -actually, in times like these, I am sure they are!

Let me give you an example of one of our investments:

In an Early Childhood Care and Development program we are running in rural China,  we make a $17 return out of our every dollar we invest: this one dollar is to help improve the pre-school education quality for 3 to 6 year-old children in the rural community; and after the children grow up,  there is a 17 dollar return: 0.2 dollar less cost for social Welfare, 0.5 dollar less cost for Education, 4.2 dollars greater income, 0.9 dollar more Taxes paid to the government and 11.3 dollars less cost due to  reduction in Crime.

Let’s come to my name card; I’m no big person though, but what I want to show to you is the logo. A lovely child within the blue circle, being protected as she/he realize his/her potential. That’s us, where children are our centre and whom we invest in. After analyzing those factors that will impact children’s life, within the specific context in Western China, we choose the right project to invest and the right partner to invest with. Take a trip to the western part of China if you have a chance in the future, the country is not all about what you have seen here in Beijing or Shanghai. Over there, Education resources are poor so we build hardware such as school buildings and computers,; we provide training of various kinds (the so called software that often makes a greater difference than the hardware); water is scarce and polluted affecting children’s health so we do our best to build a deep pump well accessing cleaner water for them; families do not have enough financial income to meet their children’s needs so we help improve parents’ business skills and provide microfinance.

It’s about investment in family and community, the origin of all types of organizations including companies. And the return is a lot more than just money, 1 dollar not just for 17 dollars but also for the dignity and potential of a human being, the happiness and hope of a family, the union and development of a rural community. In modern society, calculating currency is an explicit but incomplete way of calculating real life value and improvements; if we revise the standard to be closer to true human nature, social organizations like Plan could probably go to the stock exchange market (well, not this year anyway). We buy and sell in pursuit of the maximization of life ’ssense: love, happiness, sharing and appreciation in life. Although buying and selling in those intangibles might resemble many of the intabgible products that have been traded causing recent problems -but surely these intanibles are worth much more!

Last but not least, I wish all of you enjoy your China trip; there are always more to see and more opportunities to invest in this huge and complex territory and I wish your business here a great success.