New Partnership to Boost China’s Environmental Policies

The World Economic Forum has signed an agreement in Davos with CCICED to boost multistakeholder cooperation on environmental policy and the circular economy.

Established in 1992 with the approval of the Chinese Government, CCICED is a high level non-for-profit international advisory body composed of high level Chinese and international figures and well-known experts in the field of environment and development.

The MoU comes shortly after Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China, stressed the importance of the UN Paris Climate Agreement in his keynote address at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos as “a hard-won achievement that is in keeping with the underlying trend of global development.”

The collaboration will explore how circular and sharing-economy models can create a more resource-efficient society in China, and will also focus on other areas including oceans, the potential of new technologies for the environment, and climate change. An early output will involve research using anonymized data from sharing-economy companies and the analytical support of the MIT Senseable Cities Lab.

China has ambitious plans to reduce waste and tackle carbon emissions. Its government has promoted the recirculation of waste materials through targets, policies, financial measures and legislation. The goal is a “circular economy”, which includes closing industrial loops to turn outputs from one manufacturer into inputs for another and reducing the consumption of virgin materials and the generation of waste.

“In the past decade, China has made important progress in both the theory and practice of the circular economy, bringing environmental and economic benefits to key industries. For instance, with an annual output of over 2 trillion yuan, the resource recycling industry is growing by 15% annually and employs more than 30 million people. The application of big data and a new round of technological revolution will deepen regional and international cooperation in circular economy, and facilitate the realization of 2030 Sustainable Development Goals,” said Fang Li, Assistant Secretary-General of CCICED Secretariat, and Deputy Director-General of the Foreign Economic Cooperation Office at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, People's Republic of China.

“China is pursuing the world’s largest public-private renewable energy and green-infrastructure investment programme and is also committed to accelerating the circular and sharing economy, driven by technology and business-model innovation to promote mass innovation and entrepreneurialism and to decouple growth from resource use. Through this unprecedented collaboration, which includes harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution for the environment, we are delighted to help support China’s leadership in environment and economic transformation,” said Dominic Waughray, Head of Public-Private Partnership and Member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum.

“This collaboration shows China’s commitment to exploring new economic models for sustainable and inclusive growth. We believe that our joint work will yield important case studies and policy recommendations for leaders. We hope that this partnership can serve as a role model for collaboration with other thought leaders in China who are committed to improving the state of the world,” said David Aikman, Chief Representative Officer, China, and Member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum.

The collaboration will form part of the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy, a global project with regional hubs in China, Africa, North America, Latin America and Europe. The platform is chaired by Frans van Houten, President and Chief Executive Officer of Royal Philips, Netherlands; Naoko Ishii, Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson of the Global Environment Facility, USA; and Erik Solheim, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi. It is hosted by the World Economic Forum with support from Accenture Strategy.

The agreement was signed at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2017 by Fang, Aikman and Waughray, and It was witnessed by Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change of Canada, and International Executive Vice-Chair of the CCICED, who added: “China can play an important role in accelerating the shift to a clean-growth economy. I am very pleased to see the Council build on its accomplishments by joining this new partnership.”

A key collaborator in the World Economic Forum’s circular economy initiative is the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Dame Ellen MacArthur, its founder said: “In 2009, China was the first country to adopt circular-economy legislation, clearly recognizing the need to address the gap between anticipated economic demand and the supply of finite resources. Today’s announced collaboration between the Chinese government and the World Economic Forum, which is committed to accelerating the transition to a circular economy, sends a very strong signal of the importance of this topic and its take-up globally.”

“Accenture Strategy is pleased to see this MoU signed for the Chinese Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy. We look forward to assisting the work of the hub on transforming consumption patterns through sharing and circular models, and to helping enable mass entrepreneurship and innovation,” said Peter Lacy, Global Managing Director, Strategy and Sustainability, Accenture, United Kingdom.