For those of you eco-warriors out there who just cannot get enough of big NGO research, here is another one for you, The World Bank’s Policy Note China: Promoting A Circular Economy (right click here). At only 33 pages, this report is one that can be read through in the time it takes to consume a single latte, but due to the importance and relevance of the content I suggest making it a double.

As an entry point, the report lays out a few of the structural fissures that hypergrowth has created in China:

China’s resource utilization efficiency (defined as resource consumption per unit of GDP) is low in relation to international standards.

The combination of growing raw materials consumption and low efficiency of resource use results in massive generation of waste products, and underinvestment in waste treatment.

As a result of the rapid economic growth coupled with increasing use of natural resources the natural environment has been seriously polluted.

Institutional and policy failures are a major cause of these environmental and resource-use problems.

All equally valid, and through highlighting these, provides a measure of comfort that the goal of this report is to get to core issues and systems that need to be addressed (vs. the fluffy “cleantech” will save us all approach).

The 4 themes of focus within the report were:

Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of CE policies

Enhancing industry and community participation

Building capacity for CE implementation

Clarifying the role of government and strengthening governance

Overall, the report I think does a good job of remaining balance and offering a middle ground. It recognizes that both the State and the market have the power to catalyze positive changes, and works through a number of means that will lead to positive ends.

Additionally, it is a report that I think gives credit where credit is due, but is smart enough to say that those actions do not represent solutions. That, while a few decisions have been made in the right direction, it will require a lot more hard decisions be made going foward, and they have listed a number of pretty solid recommendations that are backed up by research:

A recent simulation of selected market-based instruments promoting CE in China has concluded that a balanced mix of economic policies can significantly improve the efficiency of resource use and reduce pollutant emissions in China while raising revenues for the government. For example, the introduction of a 20 percent tax on fossil energy (to nominally reflect the impact of climate change) would reduce coal consumption by 8.9 percent, oil consumption by 10.2 percent and GDP by only 0.1 percent. Thus, the economy’s overall energy efficiency would be improved by 10 percent, while increasing tax revenues by about 125 billion RMB (Circular Economy Policy Study Project Team. 2007)

it is perhaps the only report I have seen that correctly addresses carbon as a byproduct vs a problem, and in the end, where the report is strong in my opinion is that it is not a report focused on developing a “clean” supply of energy, water, or X, but it is about reducing the need for those technoloiges through demand side reductions first.. and then cleaning the supply.