Pollution black list forces big business to act

Large multinational companies and their local suppliers in China have long been receiving criticism over environmental concerns. Part of the criticism relates to the amount of large-scale toxic pollution being created in China so that consumers in countries like Australia can have cheap goods. One man has been particularly effective in his activism and, as a result, both multinational and Chinese companies are seeking his advice on how to get their names off his list.


Ma Jun originally became aware of China's pollution as a journalist travelling around the country. He says about half of China's water systems, rivers and lakes, are seriously contaminated. His office in southern Beijing's Guang Qu Men district houses an unassuming organisation called the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs. His website, which simply publishes information from the Chinese government, has been creating waves around world. Mr Ma lists the names of factories which have been fined or shut down by the Chinese authorities because of pollution. He then prints the names of the international companies that buy products from those suppliers.

Chinese companies seek him out and ask what they have to do to get off his black list. Mr Ma then organises independent auditors to check their emissions. If they have cleaned up their production, he takes them off his website. His list of offenders now numbers more than 68,000 and the embarrassment it is causing multinational companies is forcing them to act.

"This database now is being used by some major companies in the world, like GE, like Nike, like Walmart, as a tool for their supply chain management," he said.
"Taking Walmart as an example - every month they are comparing their list of thousands of suppliers with our list of violators and when they identify polluters that have been openly announced by the Chinese government, what they do is they will call them, they will push them to take corrective actions and eventually make a public disclosure about what went wrong and how they tried to fix their problem," he said.

Important read.

The world's eco-systems are at risk of "rapid degradation and collapse." That’s among the grim findings of a new United Nations (UN) report.The third Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3) published by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) warns that unless "radical and creative action" is taken quickly " the variety of life on Earth, natural systems that support lives and livelihoods are at risk of collapsing.”

Based on more than 100 national reports and future scenarios for biodiversity, GBO-3 shows that world leaders failed to deliver on their commitment to reduce the global rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.The five main pressures directly causing biodiversity loss: habitat change, over-exploitation, pollution, invasive alien species and climate change.

The report also finds these stresses on the environment are either constant or increasing in intensity.Vertebrate species fell by nearly one third between 1970 and 2006, natural habitats are in decline, genetic diversity of crops is falling and 60 breeds of livestock have become extinct since 2000.“Business as usual is no longer an option if we are to avoid irreversible damage to the life-support systems of our planet,” said Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, calling the report “a wake-up call for humanity.”The Economics of EnvironmentalismThe authors of the GBO-3 report argue that for a mere fraction of the money summoned up instantly by the world’s governments to mitigate the economic crisis, the serious and fundamental breakdown in the Earth’s life support systems could have been avoided.“Many economies remain blind to the huge value of the diversity of animals, plants and other life forms and their role in healthy and functioning ecosystems from forests and freshwaters to soils, oceans and even the atmosphere,” said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP.“To tackle the root causes of biodiversity loss, we must give it higher priority in all areas of decision-making and in all economic sectors,” says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.In remarks made in February, Ki-Moon argued the Earth’s eco-systems are our “natural capitol” and protecting them is really a bottom line issue. In fact, a UN-backed study estimates that loss of natural capital due to deforestation and land degradation alone stands at between $2 trillion and $4.5 trillion each year.“Too often environmental protection is seen as conflicting with economic protection. In fact they are two sides of the same coin.

All over the world, ecosystem services are a massive undervalued subsidy provided by the environment. When we lose these services through mismanagement, crops fail, profits drop, people become poorer, economies suffer,” said Ki-Moon.