Joshua Wickerham

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.

I only wrote parts of this, but, along with the Ministry of Commerce’s WTO Tribune, I edited it. I was responsible for overseeing the translation and editing new content.

The original report contains essays from Al Gore, Sir Nicholas Stern, Laura Tyson, and numerous others.

From AccountAbility’s website:

AccountAbility and Chinese partners WTO Tribune launched the Chinese version of The State of Responsible Competitiveness 2007 at the third Golden Bee International CSR Forum.

The forum saw domestic and international CSR experts - including AccountAbility Chief Executive Simon Zadek - come together to discuss new CSR development trends in China and abroad. The focus of the forum, in addition to the launch of the Chinese State of Responsible Competitiveness 2007 was the dissemination of the Benchmark Report of CSR practice in China, the award for ‘Golden Bee’ enterprises and the announcement of the ‘Golden Bee CSR China Roll.’

The Chinese version of the new report includes exclusive essays from Alex MacGillivray, Simon Zadek, your narrator, the Shanghai Pudong New District Government economic committee, and Cheng Siwei, Vice Chairperson of the 17th Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress.

I can’t say writing one of these things if fun, but it’s rewarding–and useful in improving my Chinese.

Download the Chinese version.

Download the English translation of the report.